


Illuminated

by LokiofEarth



Series: Beacon [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action, Angst, Basically a continuation of the AU with an OC inserted in, Basically all The Avengers try to be parents, Bridging the gap between Age of Ultron and Civil War, Family, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Natasha Romanoff tries to be a parent, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Protective Natasha Romanoff, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Steve Rogers tries to be a parent, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Tony Stark tries to be a parent, Violence, i still don't know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2020-10-19 03:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 79,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20650196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokiofEarth/pseuds/LokiofEarth
Summary: Harper survived Sokovia and became an Avenger. She's still adjusting.





	1. 1

**June 18th, 2015**

She's been an Avenger for about three weeks now, and it's safe to say that the honor of such a position is yet to wear off. Sometimes, when she's just casually walking around the facility, she forgets her role, but then she sees the logo somewhere and it reminds her all over again.

It's not like she's complaining about it, cause being an Avenger is awesome.

They haven't had another mission since Sokovia. She's had time to keep up with the news, and she hasn't missed the distaste that much of the public has had towards them for what occurred in the former country.

She figures that it's collateral damage.

"I'm not seeing the problem here, Cap."

She stops on this particular evening just outside the kitchen when she hears voices inside, surprised by one of them in particular. Mr Stark still has some involvement with The Avengers, supplying them with financial aid and technology, but she hasn't seen him since the day they all moved into the facility.

His tone isn't argumentative, nor is it agreeable. It's not quite an argument, but she doesn't exactly want to intrude.

She probably shouldn't stay by the door and listen in, but her curiosity prevails and she does anyway.

"That's funny, because I am." Steve counters, tone unyielding. Whatever it is that they're talking about, he seems to believe strongly in his point of view.

"I get that you spent a lot of time as a Capsicle, but surely you know what a press conference is."

She can't help but smirk at the nickname. It's kinda amusing. Not his best, but amusing nonetheless.

"Yes, Tony, I do. But that's not what the problem is."

"Enlighten me."

"I just don't understand what good it will do to parade her in front of the public like that." Steve replies, sighing, "What if they ask her questions she doesn't want to answer?"

"She doesn't answer them."

She's starting to figure out who they're talking about, though she can't be sure. She's got two candidates.

"And what kind of message will that send?"

"That she's a kid." Tony says matter-of-factly, "I was in the process of setting one up right after her little mission, but then Ultron happened."

Turns out her first assumption was wrong. She was almost certain that they're talking about Wanda, but now she knows that's not the case.

"Which is why I don't understand why it even needs to happen." Steve argues, "The world knows that she exists."

She's not entirely sure why there's a press conference happening, and she's even more confused about why she doesn't know about it. Well, she does now, but she didn't before, and she's certain that press conferences can't just happen without at least someone knowing beforehand.

"They know that she's capable of things that she shouldn't be, and that makes her dangerous." Tony says, and Harper actually winces at his choice of wording. She doesn't consider herself as dangerous, and that's not how she wants to come across.

It seems like Steve doesn't appreciate it either.

"So what does that make the rest of us?"

Tony sighs, "Trust isn't as easy to come by these days, Cap. Sokovia shook a lot of things up; made them more complicated."

"So using her as a PR scapegoat is gonna fix all of that?"

"Why don't you just ask her? She's listening in from outside." Natasha says suddenly, and Harper's caught off guard because she had no idea that she's also in the room, and she's also beyond mortified that she somehow knows that she's listening from nearby.

So when Tony peers around the doorframe, his face showing a mixture of amusement and disgruntlement, she flashes her trademark smile and stumbles over her words in front of the billionaire, "Hey, Mr Stark. It's uh...it's nice to see you."

"Likewise." He says after a moment, turning back into the kitchen and prompting her to follow, "How much did you hear?"

"You want me to do a press conference, and Steve thinks it's a bad idea." She says as she follows after him, and she doesn't miss the frustrated expression plastered on the veterans face as he stands on the opposite side of the room.

Nat's in the middle, observing from where she's leaning up against the counter casually, and she doesn't seem to be on either side of the debate.

"And, what do you think?" Tony asks, and she's surprised that he's asking her for her opinion.

She still hasn't really gotten used to him doing that yet.

"Will it make things better for the team?" She asks back, because she doesn't particularly have an opinion on the matter, so her decision's probably going to come down to how it affects the people around her.

She wouldn't mind doing a press conference - she's faced more terrifying things before - but at the same time she's not going to do it if it's not the right thing for her to do. She understands that with the position that she's in, her decisions no longer only affect her like they used to. She knows that she needs to consider things more carefully from here on out.

"Yes."

"No."

Both men stare intensely at one another, Steve more so than Tony, and it's clear that Steve's more bothered about this than he's letting on. Harper just wishes that she knew why.

Sighing, she looks to the only neutral source in the room for support, "Nat?"

"It could help with clearing the air on some things. Help us gain some trust back." She replies, shrugging nonchalantly, but then she focuses up and speaks with a greater level of sincerity, "But no one's going to force you into anything you don't want to do."

Harper nods, appreciative of her opinion, before turning back to Tony, making a split second decision, "When is it?"

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" She gasps, surprised, because she would've thought that it might be in at least a week or something, "Sure...that works."

It's surprising, and perhaps slightly daunting, but it's not impossible. Besides, if she can do anything to help the team, she's going to do it.

Mr Stark seems pleased about it, as he pats her on the shoulder as he passes her on the way out, "Great. Conference starts at five, so Pepper can help you prepare before it starts."

"I'll show you out." Steve says, almost grumbling, as he follows Tony out of the kitchen without even glancing at Harper, leaving her stood with Natasha with a guilty feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She can't help but feel like she's done something wrong.

"Is Steve mad at me now?" She asks sheepishly, turning to Nat, and the woman sighs.

"No. Just brings back memories."

Harper looks at her questioningly, "They had press conference's in the 40's?"

"Something like that."

She doesn't know what it is exactly that Natasha's alluding to, but she's certain that she could find out with enough research. She'll have to save that for another time, she figures.

Still, she can't deny that she feels nervous now that she's agreed to it. Public speaking doesn't scare her, so it's not that. It's more so because it's unknown to her. She's never even watched or been to a press conference, let alone actually spoken at one. And, of course she'll have Mr Stark and Pepper (who she's heard is lovely) there with her, but she's not seen Mr Stark that much recently and she's yet to meet Pepper.

Which is precisely why she tentatively requests something to Natasha next, knowing that she'll either forget or chicken out if she doesn't do it now.

"I know Mr Stark said that he'd get someone to pick me up, but do you mind coming with me tomorrow?" She asks, and she watches the woman carefully as she considers her response, silently hoping that she'll agree.

She confides in Natasha the most, and she trusts her and Steve the most (though that's mostly because she's known them for the longest amount of time), so she's exactly the person that she wants there with her. She needs that sense of security.

"I've got nothing on tomorrow."

The feeling of relief and comfort that Harper receives from her confirmation is euphoric, and it provides her with a greater sense of confidence for the rather daunting task that lies ahead of her.

* * *

"Remember: you don't have to answer any questions that you don't want to, and you've got cards you can turn to if you can't think of anything."

Harper nods in response, though she has to admit that she's not entirely listening to what Pepper's saying. The businesswoman is kind and focused and driven, and she appreciates all the help that she's provided her with throughout the day, but all she can think about is the fact that her official debut to the world is just mere minutes away.

She wasn't anxious before, but now she's feeling that kick in, and she's not a fan of it.

"The kid's brain's is like a supercomputer. I'm sure she'll come up with something." Tony remarks, standing up from his seat and making his way for the door leading out into the main conference room, turning back to Natasha when he reaches the wooden doorframe, "Can you walk her out in a minute?"

Nat nods back, and then both Tony and Pepper are walking out of the small green room into the main conference hall, the sound of multiple cameras clicking sounding off until the door closing seals them away temporarily.

"You ready?"

"No less than I was for Sokovia." Harper admits, sighing, and then she's turning to the older woman pleadingly, "Am I doing the right thing by doing this?"

Nat shrugs, "It depends on how you look at it. People see things differently."

"How do you see it?"

"That you're making a lot of people feel reassured by doing this." She replies, "You're providing some clarity."

Harper nods, though she's still not fully reassured, and despite Nat's support, she can still feel her anxiety creeping up on her. She's not even worried about how she may look out there. It's about how she's going to make the team look.

She can feel the cards that Pepper gave her trembling in her hands, even as Nat lays a hand on her shoulder in a comforting gesture. Her eyes tear away from the floor and go to the older woman's, who looks down at her sincerely.

"You can still back out."

Harper shakes her head, "I know, but I'm not going to. I'll be fine, trust me."

Nat doesn't seem fully convinced, but she doesn't say anything else on the matter. She comes to stand just behind Harper, keeping her hand placed on her shoulder comfortably as the two of them watch the live footage from the room just next door from a flatscreen mounted on the wall.

"I'm sure you've all noticed the arrival of a new face in the super world. Is that what you're all calling it now?"

The crowd of journalists and reporters laughs at Tony's quip, though Harper's not entirely sure why. Mr Stark can say some funny things, but Harper doesn't think that was one of his best quips.

"The Avengers are still together, and they're here to protect the people. Times are changing, and the team is changing to keep up with that. Change isn't always what we expect it to be, but it's something that we adapt to. That's something I've had to do a lot in the last few years, believe me." He explains eloquently, "But that's enough from me. You're not all here to see me...unless you are."

They laugh again. That last comment is more like Mr Stark. Something tells her that Pepper didn't add that into his cue cards.

"Acting as a representative for The Avengers, I'd like to welcome Natasha Romanoff up here, along with the hero of the hour...Harper Eddins!"

She's stepping out into the conference room, Nat leading the way, and she's instantly stunned by the amount of flashing cameras and people in the room, all eagerly watching her as she steps up onto the stage, taking the pedestal from Mr Stark when she reaches it.

The cameras don't stop even when she does, but she decides that she might as well just talk over them instead of waiting for them to stop.

"Hi, everyone. I'm Harper...but I guess that you all already knew that, and I'm an Avenger." She explains, and even she's surprised by just how short her explanation is, but she doesn't really know what else she can say, "That's all I've really got to say, I guess. Any questions?"

"Harper! Chess Roberts, WHiH World News!" The first reporter jumps in above the noise of all of the others, eagerly asking their question, "What is it that you bring to the Avengers team?"

"Well, I can fly and teleport, which both come in handy. Healing's pretty good too. It doesn't make you invincible, but it gives you an advantage, I suppose. I've also been told that I possess an enhanced intelligence, too." She explains, shrugging, "But my main ability is Photokinesis."

"Photokinesis?"

She understands the confusion that crosses most of the reporters and photographers faces. It's not exactly as well known of a superpower as flight or super strength. To illustrate her point, she lights up her hands briefly, receiving looks of both surprise and skepticism.

"It comes in handy more than you'd think." She says, expelling the light from her hands and placing them back down by her sides ready for the next question.

"Thomas Clark, WZTM News!" Another reporter shouts above the noise, "How old are you exactly, Harper?"

"I'm 13, but I'll be 14 next month."

Her birthday's coming up and she's excited. She asked for a dog in advance, but Nat said no. She's gonna try and convince Steve or Sam otherwise.

"And does your age not make you under-qualified for such a role?" He asks next, and Harper doesn't know quite how to answer him at first.

She knows that she's on the young side for a superhero, and she knows that it may be controversial, but she's not going to waste the abilities that she has because of something so trivial.

"Last time I checked, there's no minimum age requirement for helping people. Just like how there isn't an expiry date, either." She counters, and the reporter sinks down into his seat when she says it, almost looking embarrassed.

She would linger on that and feel bad, but the next reporter is already there with his question, and that ends up taking her attention.

"Griffin Sinclair, ZCN! What's your view on the events that occurred in Sokovia a few weeks ago?"

She freezes, because she doesn't know if she wants to talk about Sokovia or if she even should. She got off lucky from it all, but it still pops up in her nightmares from time to time, and when she considers how Wanda must feel about it all, it only gets worse.

Thankfully, Pepper steps in and shuts it down before she can dwell on it for too long, "Questions of that nature will not be answered at this conference."

"Megan McLaren, WJBP-TV! What do your parents think about all of this? Surely, they must have an opinion on the matter."

God. And she thought the Sokovia question was bad.

This one's gut-wrenching for multiple reasons that she doesn't want to think about, reasons that she hasn't been thinking about because she's been so busy with training and getting used to everything and press conferences and...

"My parents, uh, they...my parents..." She stutters, the words basically falling out instead of coming out coherently, because her mind's frantic and her thoughts are nonsensical and she feels like someone's punched her in the gut.

The reporter presses on despite this.

"I can't imagine they're thrilled with you putting your life at risk as you are. Enhanced or not, there's certainly a risk there, is there not?"

Perhaps the have a point, because she reckons that most parents would feel that way, but she knows that there's no way she can articulate that at the minute.

"Call it off. Now." She hears Nat say to Tony, or maybe even Pepper, behind her, and the woman's practically hissing out the words. She's angry.

It takes her a moment to get herself together, because even though she appreciates that Nat is trying to look out for her, they can't call it off cause that'll just make things look bad. Besides, she thinks she can get everything under control, or at least try.

"It's okay, Nat." She says, turning to the woman behind her.

The look she receives is one of many things. Protection, care, respect; but also anger and disbelief. Nat's not convinced, but she nods, prompting Harper to turn back to the sea of eyes staring right at her.

She finds that single reporter again, the flashing lights of the camera forgotten, and she lays it out plain and simple for her and everyone else, "My parents were killed. Murdered, actually."

Silence. You could've heard a penny drop.

"I know if they were still here, they'd be concerned, because that's what parents are supposed to do. But I know that, if they were still with us, they'd be proud of the fact that I'm not wasting the abilities that I have, or that I'm not using them for ill purposes." She explains, and she finishes it off with a rhetorical question that's sassier than anything she's ever really said, "Does that answer your question?"

The reporters all seem stunned, though none more than the lady who asked the question in the first place. She seems to be trying to vanish from within her seat. The camera people are eating it up, snapping pictures left, right and center to try and capture the moment.

She's running with it, leaning casually against the podium and looking out on the sea of reporters confidently, "Who's next?"

The conference passes by relatively quickly after that, and before she knows it she's stepping down from the stage alongside Nat and heading into the back room again, leaving Mr Stark and Pepper out there to wrap it up.

"You okay?" Nat asks her once they're inside, and the woman is stood between Harper and the door almost protectively.

It's not something that she should be concerned about, but Harper appreciates that she is.

"Yeah. I think that went well, other than my small blip." She replies honestly, "Do you think it went well?"

Nat considers the question for a moment before responding.

"I think you did well."

Harper nods, appreciative of her response, because if she wanted one persons approval, it's Nat's. Well, she'd like Steve's too, but she doubts that she's gonna get it on this one.

The door swings open then, and in strolls Mr Stark and Pepper, a tablet in the formers hands, "Well done, kid. The world loves you. Well, that reporter probably doesn't, but everyone else does."

She doesn't need him to clarify which reporter he's talking about.

"How do you know?"

"The conference was live-streamed."

She probably should've expected that, but she can't deny that it's daunting to hear. Anybody and everybody could've been watching her, "It was?"

"Yeah. Thought it was best not to tell you that. Didn't want to throw you off." He explains, and she figures that his reasoning makes sense, but he's holding up the tablet in front of her before she can question him, "You're off the charts, kid."

Her eyes scan the screen, and then she's scrolling down to see more. She can't read them all properly because that would take forever, but based on the comments it seems that people like her.

"There's the occasional bad comment, but that's to be expected." He muses, taking the tablet back, "Ben and Jerry's have already named an ice cream flavor after you, though. I had the name approved in the press release."

Now that's even cooler than any of the comments.

"They have?"

"Beacon Brownie Batter." He says, showing her an image of the ice cream tub on the screen, "It's not as good as Stark Raving Hazelnuts, but it could be worse."

She admires the image of the product for a moment, not fully realising what he's saying at first, but when she does she's beyond ecstatic, "You approved my superhero name?"

Did she technically need a superhero name? No, of course she didn't, but she kinda wanted one and she figured that 'Beacon' sounded right. She thinks it's cool, and it relates to at least one of her powers somewhat. She had suggested it to Mr Stark over the phone about one week after moving into the facility, calling him up rather suddenly when she thought of it.

He had dismissed her idea at first, so knowing that he's agreed with it is great in her eyes.

"It makes sense." He says, shrugging, and then he's heading over to the snack table at the side of the room, leaving Pepper stood opposite her.

"You were great out there." Pepper says after a moment, smiling, and Harper nods back respectfully.

"Thank you, Miss Potts."

"I already told you, Harper. Call me Pepper."

That's true. The businesswoman corrected her earlier on when she arrived with Natasha.

"Ooh. That means she likes you." Tony says teasingly whilst simultaneously picking at some popcorn from a bowl on the table.

She doesn't blame him. That popcorn's _really_ good.

"So...what now?" She asks, because she's genuinely curious. She did the press conference and all, but something tells her that there's more for her to do.

Well, there's always more for her to do because she's a superhero, but in this sense she means.

"Well, based on how much they like you, there could be some PR to deal with. It's easy stuff. A photoshoot or interview here and there, but that'll all be managed for you." He explains, "You're free to go home, kid. I'll have someone bring the car around back so you can avoid the cameras."

"Thanks, Mr Stark. Thanks, Pepper." She says as the two leave, leaving her and Nat alone once again.

"We should get going." Nat says, glancing down at the watch on her wrist briefly, "We've got a long drive and it's already getting late."

She's not wrong about that. It's almost nine - Mr Stark said the conference went on for longer than anyone had anticipated - and they've got at least a few hours drive back to the facility.

"We could just teleport back." Harper replies, following Nat as she begins to lead her out the back way of the facility, "I mean, I haven't tried taking anyone else with me yet, so there's a risk that only part of you might come with me, but we could give it a shot."

She's been working on developing more techniques with her powers, though she's mostly been successful in that regard with her Photokinesis. Progress has been a bit slower with her teleportation.

Nat shakes her head, "Yeah, I'm not risking that."

"You know, you could try having some faith in me." Harper quips back as they reach the car, taking a seat in the comfortable leather passenger seat.

"What makes you think that I don't?" Nat replies as she takes the drivers seat.

"Touche."

The drive home seems to pass by rather quickly for Harper, though she thinks that's because she ends up falling asleep at some point. It's been a long day, so she's not surprised that she's so tired. All she knows is that she closes her eyes when they're on a road, and by the time she opens them their parked in the compound parking area, Nat gently shaking her awake by placing a hand on her nearest shoulder.

"I should...I should talk to Steve." She murmurs, not even bothering to rub the sleep from her eyes, as she reaches to unbuckle her seatbelt.

"You can talk to him tomorrow, Harper." Nat replies, voice ten times softer than usual, hand still placed on her shoulder gently.

"Why tomorrow? I'm not even tired." She grumbles back, her voice cracking half way in between because of a yawn.

"Tell me why I'm finding that hard to believe."

The door by Harper's side opens then, and she instantly shivers when the cold outside air rushes into the vehicle, and she turns sleepily towards the open door to see who's there, "Steve?"

"Hey, kid." He says, and then he's reaching into the car and lifting her out of her seat effortlessly, and she's too tired to really question it.

She thinks that Nat might be following behind, though she can't be sure.

"I'm sorry if I made you mad. I didn't mean to." She mumbles once they step inside and out of the cold air, because even though she's tired she still knows that she owes him an apology.

She still doesn't know quite why he got so mad, but she's not going to question him on it.

"I know you didn't, Harper. It's okay."

She nods, because she doesn't exactly know what else to say.

"It went well." She murmurs after a moment, because she figures that he might want to know how the conference went, "They named an ice cream flavor after me."

He asks her more about the ice cream, but her responses just end up coming out as yawns, and before long she's being laid down on her comfy bed in her room, but by that point her eyes are already closed. She feels someone smooth some of her hair out of her face - she thinks it's Nat - and then she's asleep before she can even thank them.

Still, at least the press conference was a success.


	2. 2

**June 25th, 2015**

"What are you doing?"

Harper practically jumps out of her skin when she hears a voice behind her, the presence of which breaks the suspended silence thats been in the lab for quite some time. She's been working in the lab - well, one of them - alone since she woke up this morning, so to see Vision in the room is quite the surprise.

She's still not used to the android. Of course, it's basically just J.A.R.V.I.S with a body and a few extra features, but the android is one of the things she's still trying to wrap her head around.

From what she's gathered, Vision is kind and intelligent, but he can also be blunt and he's less easy to read than anyone else on the team. She's closer to even Wanda than she is to him, and she's not exactly the closest to the former Sokovia (though she has been trying).

"Jeez, Vision! Don't scare me like that!" She yelps, turning away from her work to face the android in question.

"I'm sorry, Harper. I wasn't trying to scare you." He says apologetically, his eyes focused on her even when he begins talking about her work, "May I ask why you're taking a blood sample?"

Well, if they're getting technical, she just finished taking a blood sample.

"Research."

That's not a lie. It technically is for research purposes, just not the most regular form of research.

"What kind of research?"

"Research of myself." She replies, stepping to the side slightly so Vision can see what she's been working on. It's not like there's any need for her to hide it anyway, "I can heal myself, and I still don't know why that is."

"Well, what gave you your abilities in the first place?" Vision asks, using the exact same logic that she did before she started her research in the first place.

"I don't know, but if I can figure out what it is in me that allows that to happen, then perhaps it could be possible for other people to do the same. Or maybe it could help with the development of medicine or something..." She explains, her voice trailing off when she realises how ridiculous she probably sounds. She can't tell if she is by looking at Vision.

Like she said, he's impossible to read.

"It's dumb, I know, but I just wanted to try." She murmurs sheepishly, eyes instinctively going down to the ground as her face flushes red in embarrassment.

Sometimes she feels like she sounds absolutely insane.

"I think it's very noble." Vision says, and Harper looks back up at him, surprised.

"You do?"

He nods, "Not many people are so willing to share what makes them special."

"What's the point in being special if you don't do anything with it?" She muses, shrugging, and then she turns back to her desk to continue her work, continuing to speak to the android as she does so, "What are you doing up here anyway, Vision?"

"Wanda was looking for you. She mentioned something about training."

She drops the pencil she was using to make notes on the glass desk at that, turning towards the android with wide eyes, "What time is it?"

"11:58."

She organised to meet Wanda for training at 11:30 the previous night. Both girls agreed that they could probably learn quite a bit from one another, and (Harper, at least) wanted to spend more time with the other girl in the hope of forging at least a slight friendship.

She's probably hindered her chances at doing that now.

"I've gotta go!" She shouts, and then she's teleporting down into the training area without another word, materialising before a very vexed looking Wanda Maximoff.

"Where have you been?" She asks instantly, eyes narrowed accusingly.

"I was working up in the labs. Lost track of time." Harper replies honestly, though it doesn't stop Wanda from looking annoyed at her. She sighs, "I'm sorry, okay? I just spaced."

Wanda still looks pissed, but less so than before, so Harper takes that as a good sign.

"Let's get started, then."

* * *

"Why do you watch this show?" Wanda asks, looking at Harper questioningly as they sit in the common area of the facility, watching a rerun of The Real Housewives of Orange County on the flat screen opposite.

Their training session went well besides the minor hiccup at the start. Wanda kicked her butt at times (being able to move things with your mind sure has its advantages), but Harper got the upper-hand at times too. They're not exactly good friends just yet, but the training was a good start. She reckons that Wanda's already warming up to her, even if she's not a fan of her TV show choices.

"It can be quite entertaining if you get invested in it. Especially when it all kicks off and they start arguing. That part's funny." She explains, chuckling to herself when she thinks about some of the best arguments on the show that she's watched in the past.

It's kinda her guilty pleasure show.

"I'm changing it."

Harper jumps up from the couch, grabbing the remote and taking it with her before Wanda gets the chance to do anything. Her attempts aren't enough to stop Wanda, as she simply summons the remote back to her hands with the aid of her powers.

In hindsight, Harper should've seen that coming.

"Hey! No powers allowed!" She protests, but Wanda ignores her and just changes the channel with the remote anyway.

The former Sokovian flicks through the channels for a few moments, stopping when she notices a bold tagline on the screen of a certain news channel.

_Where has Thor gone? Demi-God Avenger seems to be missing?_

Harper moves back to the couch, sitting down on the piece of furniture without even taking her eyes of the screen, watching as the news anchors of WHiH News talk about her friend.

"It's been a few weeks since the Battle of Sokovia, and it's now common knowledge that a new Avengers Team has been formed. Those departing from the group include founding member Tony Stark, but it has been made clear that he still has some involvement with the group. However, perhaps one of the strongest original members, Thor, is yet to be heard from since the original group disbanding. Does anyone know where the Demi-God's disappeared to?" A woman with blonde hair explains, and Harper decides right then and there that she doesn't like her.

"Perhaps he's just taking a well deserved break." The man to her side reasons.

Harper decides that she likes him.

"Or, more likely, he's run away to avoid facing the aftermath of the destruction in Sokovia. The Avengers have proved time and time again that they won't accept responsibility for their actions. It's a disgrace that a Demi-God of all people can't!"

She can feel it. The anger.

"It's cowardice if you ask me."

That's the final straw. The last sentence that snaps her over the edge. Her glowing hands - she doesn't know when they started shining - point towards the TV, and she's blasting a whole right through, focusing in on the female reporter specifically.

It breaks, naturally, but she doesn't care.

"Harper!"

She doesn't listen or even look at Wanda, instead standing up and marching out of the room, her hands still glowing brightly at her side. She's storming through the facility, ignoring Rhodey when he tries to stop her, and then she's in the training room, because right now she's beyond pissed and she reckons she's prone to breaking things.

She's blasting everything around her. Some things she's technically allowed to break, like the targets she's been using for practice, but some of it is stuff she shouldn't even be touching.

She doesn't care.

"Assholes! They're all a bunch of assholes!" She yells, lost in a haze of anger.

"Are you gonna tell 'em that to their faces?"

The glow persists, but she doesn't, turning around to face Sam with a mixture of anger, guilt and confusion.

He seems nonchalant.

"Oh, no. Keep going. Stark's got enough money put into this place that it can all be replaced. Steve and Natasha don't even have to know."

It's a snap back to reality, his presence, though it's not an erasure of her rage, it's enough to make the glow dim. Even if her anger doesn't.

"They're trying to make Thor look like the bad guy like he isn't part of the reason why they're still alive!" She shouts, though Sam seems unaffected by her harsh tone, just remaining where he is casually leaned up against the doorframe.

It's strange, really, how calm he is.

He begins to step forward, and she instinctively curls in on herself ever so slightly, because she knows that she's angry and that makes her dangerous and she doesn't know Sam that well just yet. She's not uncomfortable around him, far from it, but she feels like the only people she feels comfortable around when she's like this is Steve and Nat.

Steve because he can easily overpower her, and Nat because she's the only one who can really calm her down when she's like this.

Well, Thor could do both, but he's not an option at this point in time. Far from it.

He stops a reasonable distance away from her, crossing his arms and standing there patiently waiting for her to continue.

She knows what he's trying to do, and she respects and appreciates him for it.

Sighing, she takes a second to breathe before continuing, her voice about fifty decibels quieter than it was before, "I thought by doing that press conference, I'd buy us some brownie points with the press, you know?"

"You did. But you can't change the entire worlds opinion with one act." He replies.

She sighs again, "I wish it was that simple."

That's what she's come to realise: things aren't simple, and she doubts that they ever will be again.

"Have just checked out the bowling alley yet?" Sam asks her suddenly, drawing her out of her thoughts and piquing her interest.

"Bowling alley?"

* * *

"You're lying to me."

Harper turns to Sam confusedly as they head out of the bowling alley, "What do you mean?"

"You've got to have some kind of superpower that lets you get a strike every time."

She smirks. They played a few games, and she somehow won all of them. She thinks he let her win the first one, but all the others were on her. She's still surprised that there's a bowling alley within the facility. She's been exploring it a lot since she got here, but she didn't have a clue that it existed until Sam mentioned it.

The more you know.

"I don't. I guess I'm just lucky." She replies, shrugging, "Besides, that power probably wouldn't be that useful, anyway."

Imagine having a power like that.

"You feeling better?" Sam asks.

"Yeah. Thank you." She replies, partially telling the truth. Spending time with Sam has made her feel better, but it hasn't gotten rid of the feelings she had before, "Still pissed off though."

"Hey!" He shouts, tone scolding and reminiscent of the one Steve uses when he's telling her off for something, and he's looking at her with a deadpan expression.

"Not you too! Steve gets at me for that all the time!" She groans, because she has to deal with Steve telling her off about cursing as it is, so having someone else do it too won't help her case.

Nat never says anything. She just gives her a certain look every now and then when she does it.

She thinks that Sam might be like Steve in that sense, but then a smile cracks across his face and she knows that he's joking.

"I'm just playing with you!" He chuckles, playfully nudging her arm lightly. She chuckles too, and the two of them slip back into a comfortable silence for a few moments before Sam breaks it with a far more solemn sentiment.

"It's okay, you know. To be angry."

She'd agree, except she doesn't want to be angry. She shouldn't have to be.

She sighs, "Anger just leads to chaos. Everything that happened with Sokovia's taught me that."

Anger was one of the things that drove Ultron (as well as Wanda and Pietro) to do what they did. She never appreciated just how volatile anger can be, but everything that happened taught her that. Perhaps it can be used for good things, but so far she's only really seen it be used for bad things.

Well, Bruce becoming The Hulk is a bit of a different story, but even that comes with its own risks.

"You were close with the big guy, weren't you?"

She doesn't need any clarification. She knows who he's talking about.

"I guess. I didn't really know him for long, though." She replies, shrugging, "He looked out for me a lot. Didn't want me getting hurt."

Of course, all of The Avengers looked out for her (they still do), but Thor did it right from the start. Sometimes he could be _too_ overprotective, actually, but he never talked down to her and respected her as an equal from the very start.

"I don't think anyone wanted you getting hurt." Sam remarks.

"I reckon Mr Stark may have wanted that when I was being a pain in the ass." She replies, chuckling, but then her laughter dies down and she sighs, focusing up and speaking more solemnly, "I just really miss him, you know? Like, he's not _gone_ gone, but it still sucks."

Sometimes when she goes to get breakfast in the morning, she half expects Thor to be there, eating a bowl of her Fruity Pebbles at the counter. Or when she goes to train, she thinks that the Demigod's going to be there, practicing his swing with his treasured hammer.

Or sometimes, worst of all, she'll have a nightmare about Sokovia in which he dies because of something she did. Sometimes she accidentally hits him instead of one of the robots, or instead he's the one who hits the car instead of her, which is odd considering that it probably wouldn't be enough to finish him off.

She'll wake up crying from those nightmares, and if she hasn't already heard her, she'll go and find Nat. Nat will sit with her, sometimes even hold her, as she cries her way through it, and it takes multiple reassurances from the woman for her to realise that Thor isn't dead, only not around right now.

She hates those nightmares the most.

"And it doesn't help that the press is making him out to be the bad guy when he's not." She murmurs.

"Why care what everyone else thinks?" Sam counters, and Harper looks at him confusedly at first, prompting him to explain further, "You know, and I know, and the whole team knows what kind of person he is, and the thoughts and opinions of everyone else mean jack squat."

She feels like his explanation makes a certain level of sense. She got so angry in the first place because she was focused on what the reporters were saying. She never even considered her own perspective, just ran with what she was given.

"I hadn't thought of it like that." She murmurs, and then she's looking to Sam with a grateful smile, "Thanks, Sam."

"Anytime, kid." He replies, clapping a hand onto her shoulder and nodding in the direction of the common area, "Let's go throw out the TV before Steve or Natasha sees, okay?"

"Okay."


	3. 3

**July 6th 2015**

"Rhodey, I'm bored. Wanna do something?"

The colonel looks up from his computer and she can see the frustration written upon his face, "I'm a bit busy at the moment, Harper."

She's been bored all day. Everyone's been busy with their own things, and Nat and Steve agreed that she could take a day off from training, which she took and ran with because it's rare that they let her off from training. Steve's actually less relaxed about it than Nat is, and you'd think that it would be the other way around from a first glance at the pair.

She hasn't spent nearly as much time with Rhodey than she has with the rest of the team, so she figured that she might as well start today. It's just a shame that he's busy working at the minute. On what? She doesn't know, but she's hoping that he might lighten up and have a little fun.

"But you can fly."

He deadpans her, "Your point?"

"We can go anywhere in the world for free. Don't you realise how cool that is?" She asks, surprised that he's not getting it, because being able to fly has more uses than just being good for helping people.

She hasn't actually flown anywhere (other than for mission purposes) yet, but that's mostly because she has no one to go anywhere with. She really wants to go to Disney Land, but where's the fun in going to a theme park on your own?

He doesn't respond, and out of boredom she begins tinkering with some of the stuff in his office, briefly reading through some of the files on his desk. Is it nosy? Yes, but if he didn't want anyone to read them he wouldn't leave them out on his desk.

"Don't play around with that stuff!" He scolds, reaching to pull the files away, and Harper takes a step back with her hands raised. He sighs, sliding the files into a cabinet before turning back to her, "Surely there's something around here for you to do. Tony invested enough money into it."

"I already found the bowling alley, if that's what you're talking about." She quips.

She knows that there's lots of facilities here for her to use and explore. It's just a shame that she's found pretty much all of them by now. You'd think that she would after living here for over a month.

"You know who really loves bowling? Sam." Rhodey says, "You should go ask him to play against you."

She knows what he's trying to do. It sucks for him that she's always got a counter to his attempt.

"I already played against him and won." She replies, the pride in her voice apparent, because she can't deny that defeating Sam at multiple bowling games made her feel pretty awesome.

"You did?"

She nods, "Multiple times."

He looks amused for a moment, but then he seems to remember his work and snaps back into what Harper likes to call 'stern Rhodey', "Why don't you go and make a fort or something?"

"A fort?"

That's an interesting one for sure.

"Or a treehouse." He adds, shrugging, "Isn't that what kids are doing these days?"

"Absolutely not, but I appreciate the suggestion." She replies, because as unorthodox as it is, his suggestion actually interests her.

She's never built a treehouse before, though she always wanted one when she was younger. Apparently there was nowhere to build it, but she knows that there's thousands of trees that surround the compound, so she's bound to find a place here if anywhere.

She says goodbye to Rhodey, thanking him again for the suggestion, and heads straight back to her room to grab her phone. If she's gonna do this, she's gonna need some help.

Grabbing the mobile, she scrolls through her contact list until she reaches her desired number, dialling it and listening to it ring by her ear.

It takes a while, and for a moment she thinks that he won't pick up, but then the familiar voice of Mr Stark sounds through the phone, "Hello?"

"Hey, Mr Stark!"

"Hey, kid. What's up?"

"Can I ask you a small favor?" She asks, tone slightly hesitant, and he seems to pick up on that and he becomes hesitant himself.

"Wait! Let me stop you right there!" He responds quickly, tone dismissive, "Does it involve anything dangerous?"

He really expects the worse from her, huh? She likes to think that she's at least somewhat responsible.

"No, of course not. I just need to borrow your Iron Legion."

He groans, "I don't like where this conversation is going, kid."

"I wanna build a treehouse. I thought that they could help with the heavy lifting part."

There's no way that she can construct a treehouse, superpowers or not, and it's not like she has any money to hire a building crew with. The Iron Legion is the next best thing, and in some respects they'd probably be better than a building crew.

"Can't Wanda move stuff with her mind?"

Oh, he's got a point there.

"Yeah, but it'll take far less time if I have the entire legion helping out instead." She explains, hastily adding a reassurance on the end in the hope that it'll aid her case, "I promise I won't damage them!"

He goes silent for a moment, and Harper grows scared that he might just hang up or call her idea stupid or something, but then he sighs and lets her know that he's still there, "You're repairing them if they come back even scratched."

"Is that a yes?" She asks, perhaps a little too excitedly, and she hears him sigh over the line again.

"Don't make me regret this, kid." He says, and then the line cuts out, though she's not even bothered about it because she's beyond excited.

She places the phone into her pocket giddily, and then she's rushing over to her desk and grabbing a piece of paper and a pen to go with it.

Time to start drafting some blueprints.

* * *

She's screaming this time, and that only happens for the really, really bad ones. They're the kind of nightmares that not even the sickest of people could dream up, yet her mind still finds a way to piece them together and she hates it. Her throat feels raw, and she can't even describe the sickening pounding feeling that's running through her entire body as she stares off into the darkness in a haze, the scream still ripping itself from her throat despite her efforts to contain it.

The door opens, and light leaks into the dark room as Nat bursts inside as she usually does. She usually sleeps with at least a lamp on now, just in case she does have one and ends up waking up in the darkness and only adding to her fear. She must've forgotten to switch it on last night.

Nat's hugging her next, and Harper leans her head against the woman's shoulder exhaustedly as she runs a hand through her hair, murmuring the same reassurances that she always does when she gets like this.

"It's okay. You're okay."

She's okay, because it wasn't real and she knows that because Nat's here and she would've told her if something had happened to Steve. Even knowing that, it doesn't stop her from hugging her tighter, because she doesn't want anyone else to go. She can't lose anyone else.

"Nat."

It comes out strangled and muffled, the former because of her hoarse throat and the latter because of where her heads resting on her shoulder, but Nat hears her loud and clear and reassures her in an instant, "I'm not going anywhere. You're okay."

Nat understands that's what she's afraid of: being alone. Nat never leaves her when she's like this, and she never gets annoyed when she wakes her up at ungodly hours in the night. She accepts it and gets on with it, and Harper's beyond grateful that she does.

Nat stays with her until she passes through it just as she always does, and Harper lifts her head from her shoulder to look at her apologetically once she's stopped sobbing, "I'm so-."

"Don't say it. We've talked about this."

She sighs, turning so she's sat with her feet hanging from the edge of the bed and her sights set on the ground, "I know. Force of habit."

"You wanna talk about it?" Nat asks her simply, and when she shakes her head in response she doesn't pry. She just drops it and waits for her to speak again when she's ready.

"I thought they would've stopped by now."

"The worst ones don't."

She appreciates Nat's perspective on her situation. She never asks, but she gets the sense that Nat understands her in this respect. Still, she can't deny that it's frustrating. She just wants it all to stop.

"I've noticed. I just hoped they'd get a bit better." She admits, sighing defeatedly again, "I've been distracting myself with the treehouse, so I thought that it'd take my mind of it. Give myself something to focus on."

"What treehouse?"

She freezes, because she hadn't intended on mentioning the treehouse to anyone until she finished building it, but know she knows that she has to explain herself because Nat's looking at her with both curiosity and confusion.

Standing up, she moves across the room to slip some shoes onto her feet before walking back over to Natasha, extending an arm out to her invitingly, "Come on."

Nat looks at her skeptically, "We've discussed this. I'm not risking it."

"It's either this or a fifty-five minute walk." Harper replies, shrugging, "I picked a tree quite far out."

She figured if she did built it quite far out, she'd have plenty of space to expand it if she ever wanted to. Nat doesn't seem too pleased about her decision, but she stands up regardless and hesitantly makes her way over to her.

"You better get all of me there." Nat replies, only being half serious, and it actually makes Harper crack a smile for the first time since waking up.

Nat grabs onto her arm, and then Harper's closing her eyes again, visualising her destination instead of the horrors still swirling around in her head. She opens her eyes when she feels them rematerialise, and in the darkness she can see the paling expression on Nat's face that she's trying so hard to hide.

"You okay, Nat?" She asks, and the woman only nods in response, and Harper quickly reassures her because she understand the feeling that she's experiencing, "Don't worry. You get used to it."

Nat only nods back in response again, so Harper takes that as a sign to drop it. It took her ages to get over the nausea from jumping.

She leads her up to the entrance of the treehouse once she begins to look less pale in the face, and she notices the impressed expression that crosses Nat's face when she sees just how advanced and high-tech even the entrance is.

Biometric scanners, an elevator that leads up into the main treehouse...

She wanted to pull out all the stops for this one.

"You built this?" Nat asks, surprised.

"Well, the Iron Legion did." Harper replies, and Nat gives her a look similar to one a parent might give a child when they know they've done something wrong, and Harper raises her hands defensively, "Don't worry, I asked Mr Stark. The designs were all on me, though."

Nat seems to accept what she says, and Harper takes that as her cue to unlock the treehouse. She places her hand down on the biometric scanner, a red ray of light flashing over her palm before the elevator doors are sliding open.

"Welcome, smartest Avenger."

"Don't tell Mr Stark about that." Harper murmurs as the two of them step inside the elevator, "Especially not after I used his tech to build this place."

She would've had the A.I address her as 'strongest Avenger', but she knew that she'd only be lying to herself. She's never gonna be as strong as Thor or Steve, or even Bruce when he's The Hulk. Intelligence, however, that's something she can work on. She's already got an advantage, anyway.

The door opens up to the treehouse floor before it even feels like its moved, and Harper's surprised to hear Nat gasp in surprise by her side. It's small, but she can tell that she's impressed.

The place is fully kitted out with lots of Stark Industries tech. It's kinda like the Tardis from Doctor Who - it looks far bigger on the inside than it does on the outside. She's equipped it with different areas - one for relaxing, one for research purposes, and even one for eating and preparing food. You could pretty much live here if you wanted too it's that advanced.

It's definitely the kind of thing that you only see in movies, that's for sure.

She gives Nat the chance to look around, choosing to settle on a couch in the corner of the room as she does so.

"The place still isn't finished, but I've made some good progress on it so far." She remarks, "The others don't actually know about it yet."

"Why not?" Nat asks, turning to her from where she's stood by her research desk.

Harper shrugs, "I wanted to wait until I finished it. I'm still waiting on the Fruity Pebbles supplier to get back to me."

"Fruity Pebbles?"

"What do you think the dispensers are for?" She quips, gesturing to the multiple empty dispensers on the wall by the snack area, and Nat deadpans her, "What? You know how much I love them!"

Of course she does. Nat's questioned why she's got a whole cabinet full of Fruity Pebbles boxes in the kitchen on multiple occasions. In Harper's eyes, you can never have too much of a good thing, or in this case a good cereal.

Obviously, the place is far from finished. She's got some finish touches to add, some new features to add to the A.I system, but she thinks that she's made some great progress in the last couple of weeks. It's a great distraction for when she's bored, though, which is a plus.

"Pretty cool, right?"

Nat doesn't respond, instead just continuing to look around the treehouse with an impressed expression on her face, and the pride that Harper feels from seeing her reaction makes her completely forget about all of her negative thoughts in that moment.


	4. 4

**July 22nd, 2015**

"Keep your guard up."

She remains nimble on her feet, hands raised to cover her face, "It is up!"

She's been training with Nat and Steve all morning. She trained with the latter first, and can she just say that she far prefers training with him than with Nat. Steve challenges her, but he also realises that she's far inferior in both strength and experience than he is, and as of such holds back slightly.

Nat doesn't. Nat treats her as an equal, and whilst she'd usually appreciate that, she doesn't when she's getting her ass handed to her time and time again.

Nat knocks her down again, and of course she does because she's fully trained and knows how to defend herself without the aid of superpowers because that's what she always has to do, and she's hitting the mat beneath her feet with a loud grunt of pain.

Healing or not, she's not immune to pain. She's been knocked down enough that she'd bruise if it wasn't for her capabilities.

"What did I tell you?" Nat asks, towering over her, and Harper jumps to her feet and turns towards Steve, whose been stood at the side of the room spectating.

"Steve! Nat's bullying me!" She whines, hand coming up to nurse her injured arm.

Not that she really needs to. She's gonna heal anyway.

Steve doesn't take her suggestion seriously, and though the humble man doesn't laugh, a smirk does grace his face as he looks to Natasha, "Try not to get our team to quit before their first mission, Romanoff."

She deadpans him because he definitely should be taking her seriously right now.

"This isn't a joke, Steve! I am being singled out here!" She protests, because she is the only one here other than Nat and Steve.

No Wanda, or Sam, or Rhodey, or Vision. It's just her, and that means that all of their attention is on her. You might think that'd be useful as it'd give her the chance to get some extra focused training in, but it's more painful than anything.

"That's because instead of coming to the last group training session, you decided to stay in bed." Nat tells her, only half sternly, and Harper just looks at her incredulously.

"You wanted us to meet at 7am! That's way too early!"

When they told the team about the early morning training session the night before, Harper genuinely thought that they were joking. She figured they had to be, because surely no one wants to get up and exercise that early.

Apparently everyone else did, though. She certainly didn't want to.

Nat shrugs, "Everyone else managed to get up for it."

The fact that the others all turned up probably isn't helping her case.

"Everyone else is crazy." She murmurs, then quickly adding another comment as an after thought when it pops into her head, "Don't tell Wanda I said that. She could probably crush my brain if she wanted to."

Though the two of them have forged what she'd refer to as a 'pseudo-friendship', she knows that Wanda could easily destroy her if she wanted to. Though her superpowers are totally awesome, they're also totally terrifying and dangerous.

That's something she's been struggling to wrap her head around. They're superpowered, so why do they need to know hand to hand combat? She could strike someone down with her Photokinesis before they could even get close if she wanted to. It kinda just seems obsolete, if she's being frank.

"I can blast through metal. Do I really need to know how to fight like this?" She asks looking to Steve, because she knows that there's no arguing with Nat. At least there's a little leeway with Steve, "Back me up here, St-!"

She's cut off when Nat takes her down for the hundredth-odd time, this time opting to sweep her out from beneath her feet with a swift kick, and she hits the mat again with a grunt.

"What the hell, Nat?!" She groans, rolling onto her back and looking up at the woman frustratedly.

She appreciates that this is training and all, but boy, can Nat be ruthless.

"Your lasers couldn't do anything there, could they?"

She's got a point, but Harper's not about to admit that out loud. She takes Nat's hand when she extends it out to her, and she's quick to snipe back as soon as she's on her feet again, "I could fight back if I wanted to!"

Nat doesn't seem threatened by her response. More amused, like how Steve was before, if anything.

"You think?" She asks, smirking.

"I kno-!"

Again, Nat knocks her onto the mat with ease, and this time when she gets to her feet she's mad. That one wasn't fair - she caught her at a bad time.

"Nat, cut it out!" She snaps, and Nat doesn't respond verbally at first, instead reaching to grab her fists and lift them up so they're in front of her face.

"Guard up."

Harper groans exasperatedly, though she keeps her fists up by her face and keeps her eyes on Nat. She could strike again at any moment, "You kick me down one more time, and I'm teleporting out of here."

"And I'll take your phone from you."

Harper narrows her eyes at Nat, perhaps hoping that it'll either make her back out of her threat or something, but Nat stands her ground, and Harper's forced to resort to plan B.

"Steve!" She whines, turning back to the man in a last ditch effort to get her way.

Sometimes it's easy to win Steve other. One time she even managed to convince him to let her eat a whole tub of ice cream by herself. She felt a bit sick afterwards, but it was totally worth it.

Other times he's like a rock, not budging an inch and stone-faced. This seems to be one of those times, much to her frustration.

"Go for another twenty minutes and then call it a day." He says simply, and then he's turning around and making his way for the door.

"Twenty minutes?! You've got to be kidding m-!" Harper scoffs in disbelief, and it's enough to make Steve stop and turn back to her.

God. The look he gives her is enough to make her want to retreat behind Nat, and the next protest dies in her throat, a simple nod and murmur replacing it, "Got it."

He leaves and she turns back to Nat, guard still raised, but it falters slightly when she notices the expression on her face. It's a mixture of amusement and mockery, and Harper concludes quickly that she doesn't like it.

"What, Nat? What is it?"

"It's just, for a second there, you sounded scared of Steve." She replies, smirking like a Cheshire Cat.

"I wasn't! Steve's like the least frightening person alive!" Harper protests quickly, because the last thing she needs is for Nat to having something else to mock her for.

For the most part, that's true. Ignoring his physique and stern and focused attitude on missions, Steve kinda reminds her of a puppy. Innocent, easily excited by the things he doesn't understand, and friendly.

Nat chuckles lightly at her response, "Whatever you sa-."

Harper finally takes the chance to get her own back, striking Nat down mid-sentence, and the woman seems both frustrated and impressed by her small victory.

"Guard up, Nat."

Nat smirks at that.

She gets her own back less than a minute later.

* * *

"I am never missing training again!" Harper groans defeatedly, slumping down onto one of the couches in the common area next to Sam, who's sat there casually eating a bowl of salted popcorn.

In Harper's opinion, salted is the second best kind of popcorn.

Steve's in the kitchen, making a drink that looks far too green to taste any good, and she passed Wanda on her way in, but other than that the relatively large room's empty. She hasn't seen Rhodey or Vision today, but she knows where Nat is, but she honestly thinks that it's a miracle that any of them run into one another due to just how large the facility is.

"That bad, huh?" He asks, tone sympathetic.

"Nat kicked my ass!" She whines, "I only got her back like twice!"

She got lucky one other time in those last twenty minutes. She was pretty proud of herself, but then Nat knocked her down again and she forgot all about it.

"You got her back? You must've caught her on a bad day." Sam muses, "Need some ice?"

He notices the way she's cradling her arm. The pain's still there (she kept falling on the same arm, which didn't really help her situation), and though she appreciates the offer, it's not exactly gonna do much good.

"No, it's okay. Healing, remember?" She replies, wincing slightly when she feels a twinge of pain in her shoulder.

"Right." He replies, nodding as if he knew right from the start, "How long does that usually take to work?"

"Usually if I go to sleep, it's all fine by the time I wake up. I've been working on trying to speed that up, though. When we have our first mission, whenever that is, I don't want to hold us back if I'm injured, especially if there's something that I can do about it." She explains.

She's been working hard at training herself and her powers in general, but the healing something's she's really wanted to improve on. It's useful, but it likes to take its time, and she still hasn't quite got the hang of healing entire injuries at ease just yet. Taking pain isn't an issue, but that can only go so far. Imagine how useful it would be if she could heal not only herself, but the rest of the team when they really need it. She doesn't want to be the one holding the team back.

Sam, however, seems to see the situation a bit differently.

"I wouldn't worry about being the one to slow us down." He replies, and then he drops his voice to a low murmur and inconspicuously gestures over to Steve, "Not when we've got a Grandpa on the team."

Harper chuckles at his comment, and for a second Sam looks pleased with himself, but then Steve grumbles at him from over in the kitchen, "I heard that."

Sam doesn't seem too bothered by the fact that Steve's heard him, only lowering his voice slightly more to make his next remark, "Must have the hearing aids switched on."

"Heard that too."

"We tease you because we care!" Sam responds playfully, and Harper hears Steve laugh as he exits the kitchen with his interesting looking beverage in hand.

"I was gonna say we do it to be annoying." Harper says, turning to Sam again.

"That too. Don't tell him that part though." He replies between mouthfuls of popcorn, his sights set back on the TV in front of him.

"Gotcha."


	5. 5

**July 30th, 2015**

Walking out into the kitchen, Harper doesn't really know what she was expecting. She knows what day it is, but she hadn't expected anyone else too. Usually she'd be full of excitement in the days leading up to today, but she's been busying herself so much recently, what with the treehouse and all of her training, that she hasn't really had much of a chance to think about it. It's been on her mind, of course, but not as much as it has been in previous years.

So when she steps inside the kitchen and everyone jumps up from behind the couches within the common area cheering, she's surprised to say the least.

"Happy birthday!"

She screams at the sudden noise, stumbling so much that she slips on the recently polished floor, landing on her back against the hard surface with a groan of pain.

Healing aside, she can feel the sting from that one.

Sam, who had been holding up a banner, places it down and crosses the room to get to her side, reaching down and helping her up to her feet. "You okay, kid?" He asks, concerned, and she nods back, a grimace crossing her face.

"Yeah. I'm great. I just wasn't expecting...all of this." She replies, gesturing over to the rest of the team and the little party set-up they've got going on.

The whole team's here besides Nat, and they've kitted out the place with balloons and other birthday decorations alike, the number '14' visible across all of the decorations. The banner that Sam was holding is now being held by Rhodey, and though it looks awesome, Harper notices that it's one of the only decorations that isn't store bought.

"Who made the banner?" She asks, looking around the group, and Steve surprises her by raising his hand.

"I did."

Who knew Steve could draw? She certainly didn't.

"It looks great. Thanks, Steve." She says gratefully, and Steve, as modest as ever, simply replies with a simple 'you're welcome' and a polite nod. "Where's Nat?" She adds, looking around again for the woman.

"She's just grabbing the gifts." Vision says.

"You guys didn't have to get me anything, you know." Harper replies, following Sam into the common area and sitting down on the couch beside him, a space remaining reserved by her side for Nat.

"What kind of birthday would it be without gifts?" Rhodey asks, a 'duh' kind of expression on his face, "Speaking of."

Natasha walks in then, a stack of wrapped gifts being balanced in her arms, and she places them down on the coffee table in front of Harper before taking a seat by her side, prompting her to open up the gifts.

Steve gives her a notebook. It's small with a leather casing, and he even throws in a small, steel cased pen into the mix. She's never had a gift quite like it before, but it's so fitting to his character that it makes it all the more cooler. Who else can say they were given a notebook by a war hero for their birthday?

Sam and Rhodey give her a joint gift: a years subscription to Netflix, which is something that she's been insisting they get for the facility for a while now. Of course, they've got the screening room for films and all, but some of the series on Netflix are supposed to be really good and you can't get them anywhere else. She has a feeling that she might have to share that gift, but she doesn't mind.

Wanda gives her a guitar. The former Sokovian has one in her own room, and Harper sometimes catches her playing it when she walks by and the doors been left ajar. Sometimes, Wanda will let her use hers, and she's wanted to get one for a while now so Wanda could teach her how to play properly. It'll give her something to do in her downtime.

Vision doesn't have a gift for her, and she instantly feels bad when she notices the guilt that crosses the android's face when he realises he's the only one who doesn't. She reassures him that it's fine and she's just glad that he's there. He doesn't seem convinced, but he doesn't say anything else on the matter as she moves onto Nat's gift.

It's something that you wouldn't expect an ex-assassin to purchase, let alone give to someone else as a birthday gift, which is why she's so surprised to find a dainty little snow globe inside of the last neatly wrapped box.

She's recently had a fascination with the seven wonders of the world for whatever reason. The other day, she asked Nat if she could take a day trip to China to see the Great Wall. She said no (of course) but now, in the palms of her hands, is the Great Wall of China.

Well, a miniaturised version, but it's cool nonetheless.

"I thought I'd get you one each year until you have them all." She says, shrugging, "I mean, you won't end up getting them all until you're twenty, but you'll have them all eventually."

She's touched by the thought that Nat's put into her gift, and she's thankful to them all for getting her such great gifts. It kinda makes her forget, just for a moment, about the fact that...

"Clint couldn't make it but he sent this over." Nat adds, interrupting her thoughts by extending a piece of slightly crumpled paper out to her, "Lila drew it for you."

Harper inspects the paper, smiling at the sight of the image drawn upon it in a wide variety of colored crayons. Lila's drawn a picture of herself stood next to Harper, the latter in her suit, and the words 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY' stand above them in bold, blocky letters.

"It's great." Harper says honestly, because she's overjoyed that Lila was so kind to draw it for her, and then Nat's surprising her once again by passing yet another unexpected gift over to her.

"And Cooper wanted you to have this."

Nat drops a single, slightly tattered baseball into Harper's already full hands, and the girl recognises it without even the need for inspection.

It's the baseball that she and Cooper played catch with, and she's once again beyond grateful for the gift despite its simplicity. Both kids really have kind hearts, just like their parents.

"You started the party without me? I'm offended!"

Harper's surprised when Tony enters, mostly because she figured that if anyone may have forgotten about her birthday, a busy businessman like himself would be the prime suspect. But no, he walks into the room, as confident as ever, and he takes a seat on the chair directly opposite her with a grin.

"Hey, kid. Happy birthday."

"Hey, Mr Stark." She replies, smiling, "Thanks for coming."

"If I didn't, I wouldn't be able to give you this." He says, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a small smartphone-looking device and passing it over to her, and he begins to talk about it before she can even ask any questions, "That is a prototype for a holographic smartphone."

"You're making smartphones now?"

That'll be one for the headlines:_ 'Stark Industries branches out into the world of smartphones'_. It'd also be pretty cool, too, but Harper's quick to learn that that's not the case.

"No. That one's a personal project." He replies, nodding to the device in question, "Turn it on."

She does, and instead of the screen lighting up as most smartphones do when they're switched on, the menu of the phone instantly projects into the space above the phone. Harper tentatively moves the phone around, amazed as she watches the hologram follow it, and she's even more amazed when she interacts with the interface and it's perhaps even more responsive than most touch screen smartphones.

It's definitely the kind of device that only Tony Stark and Tony Stark alone could possibly develop.

"Thanks, Mr Stark." She says, pocketing her new device before turning back to the group, "I've never gotten anything like this for my birthday before. Dad always said that phones were too expensive. At least the new ones."

In hindsight, she understands where he was coming from there. Smartphones can be expensive.

A moment passes, and she doesn't miss the way the others all exchange glances, but she chooses not to question it for the time being when Nat places a hand on her shoulder, "So, Harper, what do you want for your birthday breakfast?"

* * *

"Hey, Steve." Harper says as she strolls back into the kitchen later that afternoon, having just come from the screening room where she was watching a film with Wanda.

Wanda let her pick because it's her birthday, and Harper decided to go with Ted. Her parents never let her watch it for multiple reasons, but she's glad she got the chance to watch it because she found it really entertaining. Inappropriate at parts, but entertaining nonetheless.

"Hey, Harper. How was the movie?" He asks in response.

"Hilarious. I get why my parents never let me watch it though. I lost count of how many times they cursed in it." Harper replies as she takes a seat by the kitchen counter, and she doesn't miss the way that Steve frowns when she mentions the cursing. It makes her think of someone, "You're just like my Dad, you know? He hated cursing too."

Steve stops what he's doing for just a moment before resuming, though Harper doesn't miss it, "What?"

"Nothing." Steve replies, shaking his head, and she can't tell if he's lying or not.

Part of her doesn't want to know.

She leaves him for a minute, allowing him to finish up what he's doing, before she talks again.

"Can I ask you something?" She asks, and he nods in response, "What did people do birthday wise during the 40's?"

Steve shrugs, "We celebrated, just like people do now."

In hindsight, she should've expected that.

"I don't know why I thought it'd be different." She replies, because she honestly doesn't know what she was expecting him to say. At least that answers something that was on her mind.

"Things were different, but some things haven't changed."

"Like what?" She asks, curious.

"Me."

Touche, Rogers. Touche. She knows that Steve's changed physically, but from what she's seen in museums, his personality has always been the same.

"I'm gonna go find Nat." She says after a moment, making her way for the door, "Thanks for answering my question, Steve."

She heads out of the kitchen, making her way down the hall in an attempt to find Nat. She's spent time with most of the team today, and she even got the chance to spend some time with Tony before he left, but she's hardly seen Nat.

She passes by the entrance to the lounge, pausing at the door when she hears Sam's voice, which is followed quickly by Nat's.

"She keeps mentioning her parents."

She hears Nat sigh, "She's allowed to talk about them, Sam."

"I know that, but don't you think it's strange? She doesn't talk about them for weeks and on her birthday she starts doing it again."

She frowns, because she doesn't understand why Sam's talking about this, and why he's not just speaking directly to her about it.

"Why don't you just talk to her?" Nat asks, almost reading her mind by doing so, and she hears Sam sigh this time.

"You want me to talk to a teenage girl about emotions?" He asks.

"Why not?"

"I don't want to say anything that'll upset her." He replies, and she can tell by the tone of his voice that he's not just saying that as an excuse, "Why do you think we've all been so cautious with her all day? We don't want to set her off."

Harper pauses for a moment and as she thinks about it, she comes to realise how strange everyone's been acting all the day. The way they've been pausing every time she mentions them, and not to mention the way they've all be treading on egg shells around her all day.

Now it all makes sense.

"She's not some kind of bomb, Sam." Nat replies, voice dancing on the boundary between being calm and angry, and Sam has to quickly jump in again to calm her.

"She can cause as much destruction as one." He says, pausing a moment to sigh again before speaking again in a far simpler tone, "The kid's been through a lot."

"Don't you think I know that, Sam?"

Nat doesn't sound angry. More regretful if anything, and that only makes Harper feel bad. She doesn't want Nat, or any of them, to feel like that.

"I do. And I know that you've got a soft spot for the kid, which is why I'm trying to warn you." He explains calmly, "Just don't be surprised when she falls apart."

She can't explain it, but hearing Sam say that aloud sets something off in her. Perhaps its been there the entire time and she just hasn't noticed, but now it's going off in her head like a siren and she can feel her throat tightening painfully to match it. It's like someones just flipped a switch to set off the self destruct in her mind, and now it's exploding at a frightening rate.

She doesn't understand it, nor does she want anyone to see it, so she teleports away, spawning within the confines of her treehouse, miles away from anyone else.

She stumbles into the couch at the side of the room as she begins to cry uncontrollably, and she hates herself for it because it's her birthday and who cries on their birthday? She should be celebrating, but instead she's hiding away and crying.

Her brain's going at a hundred kilometres per hour, and even with her enhanced cognitive function she's struggling to keep up with it all. It's constant, and she's crying for what feels like hours (it turns out to be about two, in fact) before she becomes exhausted and has nothing left to cry out.

It's when she gets to that point, and the dust settles, that she realises why everything fell apart. She felt something similar, though nowhere near this severe, when she woke up this morning, but she pushed it to the side once it passed, with her mind focusing in on the fact that it's her birthday instead.

In hindsight, she probably shouldn't have done that.

"Agent Romanoff is outside."

She's startled when the treehouse A.I suddenly speaks, because she hasn't heard another voice in the last couple of hours, but she's quick to respond once she's composed herself, "Is it just Nat?"

"Yes."

She considers asking the A.I to just get rid of her, but she knows that Nat'll still find a way inside somehow. It's not that hard to break into if you know how.

Sighing, she says, "Let her in."

A moment passes, and then the elevator door opens and Nat steps out, and she crosses the room to stand opposite Harper.

"What are you doing all the way out here? Vision's making a cake." She says, tone less accusatory and more questioning.

Like she said: treading on eggshells.

"Vision is?"

Nat shrugs, "He said he knows how to."

"He knows how to do everything, Nat. He's an android." Harper muses, but then she realises that this could be becoming a conversation, and she doesn't like that because it could lead to a topic that she doesn't really want to talk about. "Look, Nat. I appreciate you coming out here to get me but if you're gonna treat me like I'm made out of glass like everyone else, then-."

"I'm not here to do that." Nat interjects, "I'm here to ask you why you're hiding."

"What makes you think I'm doing that?" Harper asks, trying to act surprised by what Nat's suggesting, because she subconsciously knows that she's doing exactly that and just doesn't want to admit it, "I just came out here to think."

"Seems like a long way to go just to think."

Harper shrugs, "Not when you can teleport and fly."

"Are you gonna tell me what you're thinking about, then?"

Nat's determined, she'll give her that.

"Why would I do that?" Harper counters, hoping that if she's hostile Nat might just drop it.

Of course she doesn't, though.

"Because you trust me."

"Surely you can figure it out." Harper muses, standing then and crossing the room to where the still empty dispensers are, twiddling the dials on them instead of looking at Nat, because if she looks at her she feels like she has to give her an answer.

"I have." Nat replies, surprising her, "I want to know if you have."

"What are you talking about?" Harper asks, and now she's struggling to hide the harsh tone in her voice as she talks.

"Stop running and tell me how you feel." Nat tells her, and that's enough to bring out her anger, because Nat's talking about the things that she doesn't want to face or admit.

"I'm not running!" She snaps, looking away from the dispensers to face Nat.

The older woman doesn't seem bothered by her harsh tone. She doesn't even flinch, remaining where she is with her arms crossed.

"You've been distracting yourself for weeks. First the treehouse, then all the training you've been doing these last few days. You don't want to give yourself the chance to think. And now, you're talking about your parents non-stop because all of that's caught up to you." Nat explains, remaining calm.

Harper doesn't get why she's bringing this up now. Well, maybe she does, but she doesn't _want_ her to bring it up now. She doesn't really want to think about it full stop, if she's being perfectly honest.

"Is that so bad?" She counters, but Nat comes back with an equally valid and strong response.

"It is when you don't step back for a second and face what's bothering you."

She doesn't know what it is, but that's enough to make her snap. She completely loses control, and she's yelling and near enough screaming at Nat as she lets it all go finally.

"You wanna know what's bothering me, Nat? This morning, I woke up and got all excited when I realised it was my birthday, and I sat there in bed for twenty minutes waiting for my parents to come in with my favorite breakfast, because that's what they did every year for as long as I can remember! I expected to see them again, and when I remembered that I'll never see them again, I felt like someone had shot a bullet right at my heart and it had gone right through me!" She yells, throat raw, "And I appreciate that you guys are trying to get me to enjoy my birthday, but it's kinda hard to celebrate when you know that the people who have been with you for every birthday your entire life will never be with you again!"

Nat stands there, unwavering, and Harper doesn't know if she should be grateful or pissed off at her lack of a reaction. She goes with the latter, and she's yelling even more as she crosses the room to a nearby desk, smashing everything off of it in a fit of rage, still screaming on the top of her lungs.

"It's bullshit! It's absolute bullshit!"

It's frightening, really. How quick she went from being unbearably sad to terrifyingly angry.

"Stop breaking that. You spent time making it." Nat tells her, still remaining where she's always been, and Harper directs her attention away from the desk and onto her, tone of voice remaining the same.

"Who gives a shit!? I don't, and I don't think you do, either!"

"If I didn't, would I be here?" Nat counters, sounding slightly offended by Harper's suggestion, but she's too angry to really think about that.

She's never gotten this mad before, and that's saying something, because she sure has had her moments in the last couple of months.

"You give a shit because you have to, Nat! It's your job!"

Nat stops for a second, and the look of hurt that crosses her face would ordinarily be enough to make Harper feel unbearably guilty at just the sight of it, but not now. Nothing's right at this moment. None of it.

"No it's not. And it's not Steve's either. Or Sam's, or Wanda's, or Rhodey's, or Tony's, or Vision's, or Clint's." Nat counters, tone surprisingly calm, and she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small sealed box that instantly catches Harper's attention, "It wasn't Thor's either, but he still does. That's why he left you this."

Nat tosses the box over to her, not even daring to approach just yet, and Harper catches it and looks at it curiously, her angry temporarily forgotten.

"He gave it to me before he left. Told me to give it to you today."

She opens up the box, finding two items within, the first catching her eye more so than the second. She lifts it out of the box, and it's small enough to fit into the palm of her hand, but she recognises it as clear as day.

It's a miniature version of his hammer. Of Mjolnir, and with it is a small note that's been made with Thor's own handwriting. Harper recognises it in an instant.

_You're worthy, little person. Never forget that._

She holds the hammer up in her hand and the guilt finally hits her full force, and she has to say that it's perhaps the worst thing that she's ever felt.

"We can't replace your parents, Harper, but we do care."

And that's all it takes for the anger to go, and rushing into its place is guilt and sadness. She places the hammer and the box down, turning back to Nat with tear-filled eyes and choking out an apology.

"I'm sorry."

Nat approaches her then, reaching out to wrap her arms around her, and Harper clings to her the second she's close enough, and she barely hears Nat's reply as she buries her face into her shoulder.

"Stop apologising."


	6. 6

**August 9th, 2015**

"We haven't assembled."

She feels Wanda's eyes on her as she makes her sudden statement, confusion plastered across her face, "What?"

They're in Wanda's room, the older girl sat on her bed whilst Harper sits on a chair at the side of the room, both of them preferring each others company rather than spending the morning alone. It's been a relatively quiet morning, and for that reason Harper's had the chance to get lost in her thoughts a bit, and that's what brought her current thought into her mind.

"We the Avengers, and we haven't assembled yet." She replies, and that only seems to add to Wanda's confusion.

"Is that not good?" She asks, some of the words almost getting lost in her still thick Sokovian accent.

It's starting to go a bit, the accent, but Harper knows that it'll stick around for a while until it fully goes. If she was Wanda, she would want to hold onto it. With Sokovia and Pietro both being gone, Wanda has to have something to hold onto other than the team. Something that reminds her of where she's from.

She doesn't know how Wanda will react when it eventually does go.

"No, it is, because that means that there's nothing going terribly wrong in the world, but it's just odd." Harper replies, shrugging, "I thought we would've had to by now, you know?"

Of course, she's beyond glad that everything's been good with the world. After Sokovia, people were scared, and the fact that there's been this period of time where nothings gone wrong has helped to reassure a lot of those people, but part of her doesn't like it because it's only making her more apprehensive for when they're gonna be called on next.

"Suit up. We've got a mission."

Now, she's not saying that she can predict the future, but she can predict the future.

"We do?" She asks, both her and Wanda looking at Sam in surprise.

He's at the door, already suited up in his Falcon gear, and he looks ready to go, "Cap just got an alert from Easter Europe."

"Eastern Europe?" Harper asks, her eyes instantly going to Wanda. The girl, surprisingly, doesn't react as she thought she would, but now her mind can't help but wander to an alarming thought, "Could it have something to do with Ultron?"

Sure, they may have destroyed the sentries and Vision may have burned him out of the net, but a small part of her can't help but consider the possibility that Ultron could still be out there. He's tactical, and he could just be hiding from them until the time's right. Perhaps this is that time. She really hopes not.

"I don't know." Sam replies, "Look, we're leaving in five. Grab what you need and head to the hangar."

Wanda nods, standing up and crossing the room, and Harper and Sam take that as their cue to leave. Harper follows the man out of the room and down the hall, matching his fast pace, and he looks at her confusedly when she continues to follow him even as they pass her own room, "Don't you need to go and get your suit?"

"No need." She replies, rolling up the sleeve of her sweater to show him the control panel of her suit that's attached to her wrist, "I always have it on."

"Always?"

"Not when I'm sleeping."

Sam looks at her weirdly for that.

"What? Who knows when something's gonna happen?" She replies, "Besides, it's not like I'm always wearing the suit. Mr Stark made it so it's contained."

Now, she doesn't want to be overconfident or anything, but she likes to think that she has the coolest suit out of the team. She may be a bit biased on that one, though.

The two of them make their way towards the hangar, finding the rest of the team (minus Steve and Wanda) loading into a Quinjet. Rhodey's clad in his bulky War Machine Suit, and Vision's just in his regular attire, but Nat's dressed for a mission. Harper taps her suit on as they approach them, and by the time they reach the jet her suit's fully on (excluding the mask, of course).

"Did you know that she's always wearing that thing?" Sam asks Nat, and the woman gives her an odd look to match Sam's.

"No." She says, "Why would you do that?"

Both of them look amused. Harper isn't.

"You guys are just jealous that I'm always ready for a mission and you guys aren't." Harper quips back, trying to make a joke to hide her embarrassment, and Sam chuckles and tussles her hair lightly.

"Whatever you say, kid."

Steve walks in then accompanied by Wanda, both suited up, and the two of them make their way over to the group standing just outside of the jet.

"Tony's not coming. He said those new engines he designed for the Quinjet will get us there fast enough though." He explains.

Harper's intrigued, not only because Steve asked Tony to accompany them, but also because of the new engine designs. She wonders how fast it'll make the jet go.

The team clambers onto the jet, Steve and Nat taking the front two seats, and the rest of them disperse around the jet as it shoots out of the hangar. Of course, from within the jet you can't really feel how fast it's going, but just from glancing out of the window Harper can tell that it's going faster than usual. The clouds are passing by so fast that it's difficult to distinguish one from another.

Good old Mr Stark. He sure has a knack for inventing things and then perfecting them ten times over.

They aren't flying for long when Steve's letting them know that they're approaching their location, showing just how much Tony's improved the engines of the jet.

As she watches the others begin to get ready, her thoughts from earlier begin to resurface and spin around at a hundred kilometres an hour in her mind. Enhanced brain or not, it's a lot to deal with, and Rhodey seems to notice her paranoia and looks to her with concern.

"Harper?" He says, drawing the others attention to her, "Are you okay?"

Everyone's looking at her now, even Nat and Steve, so she knows that she might as well just say it aloud.

"Guys, what do we do if this is an Ultron situation?" She sighs, because she can't keep the thought trapped up in her head any longer. She's not scared of much, but the whole Ultron thing shook her up more than she'd like to admit.

"If this does turn out to be Ultron-related, it's nothing that we haven't handled before." Rhodey says reassuringly, "We can handle it, okay?"

She nods, half reassured and grateful for it, and she stands up from her seat to go and look out the window, hoping to get an idea of what they're heading into. She had expected to see a town or city in distress. Perhaps some mercenaries or something terrorising the people.

Instead, she finds something far bigger and terrifying than even that.

"Holy shit."

Instead of mercenaries, a ginormous robot, larger than anything she's ever seen, stands in the middle of small village, leaving destruction in its path.

The others rush to the front of the jet, and thank God that it's on autopilot otherwise they would've already crashed right into the robot, and even Steve seems surprised by the sight. He's so stunned that he doesn't even remember to scold her for cursing.

That's when you know something's up.

"Okay, I'll admit, I wasn't expecting _this_."

She doesn't think any of them were expecting this, but that's not something any of them need to hear right now. They need to deal with the matter at hand, and Steve seems ready to do so. Reaching forward onto the control console of the jet, he presses the button that opens the hatch up at the back, turning to the group with his shield firmly in hand.

"You guys know the drill."

Steve leads the charge, jumping out of the jet without a single sign of hesitation, and Vision follows closely behind, holding onto Wanda to make sure that she safely gets down to the ground. She can't really fly, after all. Hovering? Kinda, but that's not gonna offer that much help from how high up they are.

Rhodey's out soon after, leaving Harper in the jet with both Nat and Sam, the latter of the two placing a hand on her shoulder, "You're so lucky that Cap didn't pick up on that."

She knows what he's talking about, and normally his comment would make her laugh, but when she watches him and Nat both disappear out of the jet, she's instead filled with a sinking feeling of dread and adrenaline.

She pushes it aside as she throws herself out of the jet after the others, flying down to where they already are attacking the ginormous robot.

It looks similar to how the Ultron Sentries did, only now it's blown up in scale and looks far more menacing. They're all attacking it from multiple angles. Cap's shield gets lodged in its metal casing more times than she can count, and the amount of times both she, Rhodey and Vision blast it should be enough to finish it off. Unlike how it was with the Ultron Sentries, it seems that she can't just blast through them and finish them off.

Blast after blast. Attack after attack. No matter who it is, none of them can seem to make any headway against the gargantuan foe. It seems to be near enough indestructible, and not to mention a futile effort on their part.

Nat seems to have the same viewpoint, as her voice soon sounds loud and clear over the connected comms system.

"We need a plan here, Cap." She says, breaths labored from all of the fighting.

"Sam, I need you to scan this thing so we can see what we're up against." Steve responds quickly, and Sam tells him that he's already on it, which provides Harper with a sense of relief as she continues to fly around, attempting to dodge the huge swinging arms of the robot.

She spots Sam's small little robot - dubbed 'Redwing' by him personally - whizz around the robot as she flying around, though she only sees it for brief moment before it goes out of sight again.

"This thing's a hollow shell in more ways than one. It's reacting, but not thinking. That means there's someone controlling it." Sam explains, and he pauses again for a moment, and Harper feels herself beginning to panic because she thinks that something may have happened to him, but then he speaks again and she calms down again, "Got em. Just a few clicks west, behind the tree line."

That's good, she figures. They've identified the source. If they take that out, then the robot should fall.

Hopefully, anyway.

"Copy that. You and Natasha take care of them while we keep this thing busy." Steve replies, and Harper takes that as her cue to get closer to the robot again.

Whoever these people are who are controlling it, they've got to give them the impression that they're the ones in control. If they do that, then they won't expect the attack as much, and that way they'll have more of a shot at pulling it off.

So she fights. She fights with everything that she has, firing off shots even though that she knows her attempts are futile, and at first she's doing so quite well. Sure, her shots aren't doing any damage, but at least she's distracting it and keeping herself from being harmed.

Well, that is until the robots arm strikes her out of nowhere, and the force of it is beyond anything that she's ever felt. It's so strong that she loses complete control, and she can't orientate herself as she's sent flying towards a nearby cluster of trees, which do not aid in breaking her fall.

She feels it all, but it happens so fast that she doesn't really get the chance to react to what's happening. All she knows is that she hits a hard surface, and then she doesn't see or feel or react to anything else.


	7. 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we get into the next few chapters, I want to leave some warnings.
> 
> The subject matter of these next few chapters could be considered somewhat dark. I've written ahead, and I've intentionally kept things less descriptive because of this. It's nothing awful, but any warnings I need to make will be listed at the top of the upcoming chapters, and I'm only saying this as I know people have different sensitivity levels and it's important to be aware/wary of this.
> 
> Regardless, enjoy the chapter and the ones to follow, and thanks for all the reviews and kudos! You guys rock :)!

When she finally comes to, she doesn't feel comfort like she did the last time she woke up from being forced into unconsciousness because of pain. That was right after Sokovia, and then she was greeted to Dr Cho and Mr Stark and a cheeseburger and somewhat familiar surroundings, but she's got none of that right now.

When she opens her eyes, her first instinct is to try and move, but when she tries to do just that she finds that she's stopped by something. Glancing down, she notices four things that stand out: her suit's gone, leaving her in the clothes she had on before she activated it, and she can't see the control panel on her wrist anymore; she's lying on some contraption similar to a dentist's chair, which is already enough to make her feel uneasy; there's some kind of contraption that's attached to her temples that's restricting her movement, though it's not unbearably tight to her head, at least; and she's shackled down, restraints covering both of her wrists and ankles.

The latter two of the three are definitely the most concerning.

She's alone in the room, and it seems to be some dingy excuse for a laboratory. There doesn't seem to be much that stands out about it, except a single black flag with a familiar red logo on the far wall. She almost feels sick at the sight of it.

It's the HYDRA emblem.

"Hello, Harper."

She tenses at the sound of an unfamiliar voice, and she stiffens even more as an unfamiliar man, clad in a lab coat and dark clothing, walks into the room. He's relatively scrawny, but he has a certain look about him that sends an unexplainable chill up her side. Another man accompanies him, and he's far bulkier than his counterpart, and he goes to stand by a small switch to the side of the chair she's strapped onto.

Something tells her that that's not a good sign.

She decides that she should try and get out, which in hindsight is something she should've tried from the moment that she woke up. She concentrates just as much as usual, perhaps even more so given her desperation in the situation, but nothing happens. So, she tries again. And again. And again, and it's enough for the scrawny man to notice and even smirk.

"Oh, I wouldn't try to teleport if I were you. The implant we gave you restricts that." He tells her, gesturing down to her right arm, and upon inspection she notices the small black spot underneath her skin that's not usually there.

"Where am I, and where is my suit?" She demands, ignoring the implant and turning back to the scrawny man. When he doesn't answer, she snaps, "Answer me, asshole!"

He looks mad, but he doesn't say a word, instead looking to the bulkier man he came in with and nodding simply.

She doesn't understand it at first, but then she feels a jolt of pain course through her head. She recognises the sensation, though it's far worse when it's at her head. She hisses in pain, closing her eyes briefly as she winces, and when she opens them again the scrawny man is looking at her with amusement.

"That was rude, wasn't it?" He asks, a sick smirk on his face for a moment, and then he becomes stoic, "Now you know how it feels."

This guy's like a rollercoaster when it comes to how he composes himself. She's never seen anyone quite like him, and that scares her.

It doesn't, however, take away from her anger, and she doesn't have any reservations in making that fact known, even with the threat of being shocked again lingering over her like an anvil on a thin wire.

"Forgive me if I rude to someone who's part of the organisation that killed my parents!"

"You know who I am?" He asks, tone surprised.

"No, but I don't think that it matters."

She doesn't care who he is. She knows that he's associated with HYDRA, and that alone is enough to make her despise him. To her, HYDRA are murderers. They're the people who took her relatively calm life and flipped it on its head. They're the ones who took her parents from her, and they'll never be anything more than that in her eyes.

"My name is Ivan." He tells her, as if she's supposed to care, and he picks up on her hostility, "What? I know your name, so it's only fair that you know mine."

She scoffs, because she finds it hard to believe that someone like him is bothered about things being fair. She gets a second shock for that, and once she's done gritting her teeth through the pain (she can tell that they've done something to stop her healing too, because she's usually more tolerant to pain), she directs a question towards him through pained gasps.

"What do you want?"

"To make you better." He replies, morbid ambition glistening in his eyes, "You're wasting so much."

"What are you talking about?" She asks, confused. She was hoping that by asking a question, she might at least gain some understanding on what's going on. She's only ended up being more confused than before.

"You can do extraordinary things, Harper. Truly extraordinary. That's something to be proud of." He says, and he has the nerve to begin pacing around the lab as they talk. It's as if their conversation is boring him.

She scoffs again, "No offense, but if you think a couple of half-ass compliments are gonna make up for the whole kidnapping thing, you've got another thing coming."

No shock this time, but he does pause and turn to her, his face showing a mixture of amusement and disdain.

"You've got the same attitude that your father had. That man always had a comeback."

She freezes.

He knows her Dad?

"Oh, yes. I knew them long before you were born, Harper." He replies, noticing and playing on her shock, "I even met you when you were no longer than my arm."

"What?"

She's not only stunned, but now scared of the fact that this man knows her. He knows her and she had no idea, and who knows how long he's been after her? She has no memory of him, but he certainly remembers her, and that's the frightening part.

Crossing the room, he grabs a chair mounted on wheels and pulls it over to the space just in front of her, taking a seat directly opposite her to continue their conversation.

"Have you not thought about how you acquired your abilities? Surely someone with such an advanced mind such as yourself would have."

She has thought about that very question. Of course she has, because one day she was normal, and the next she just...wasn't. Anybody in their right mind would question why that is.

"Your parents and I worked under a specific division of S.H.I.E.L.D together. Classified, of course, but innovative in more ways than one. I'll offer you some piece of mind in telling you that your parents were noble. They weren't aware of my actual affiliation, nor where they aware of the true intent of most of the division. They were only doing their jobs."

It's a lot of information to process. Ordinarily, she'd be able to do it, but her head's still reeling from those shocks and she's not exactly in the most focused state at the minute. It takes her a second before she responds, and when she does it's only with a simple question.

"What does any of this have to do with me?"

"Patience is a virtue, Harper. I'm surprised those _heroes_ you affiliate yourself with haven't taught you that. It's a shame, really." He replies, sarcasm apparent in his voice.

She also can't help but wince when he practically hisses as he refers to who she assumes is the rest of the team. It sounds a lot like hatred.

"You were born a few years into the division, and by that time we had made tremendous progress. Your parents were under the impression that they were working on improving the methods of peacekeeping being used by S.H.I.E.L.D at the time, but they were mistaken. They thought they were developing something similar to the super-soldier serum that was administered to Captain Rogers, and that it would be used for the same good purposes. What they were really working on was something new entirely. Something far better and better than anything HYDRA had previously developed."

She knew her parents were smart, and she knew that they were members of S.H.I.E.L.D, but she just assumed that they would've done more mundane jobs within the large organizations. Perhaps being assistants to higher ranking members, maybe secretaries at a push, but that's it. Not leading researchers in a top secret division.

Knowing that, and combining that with what else she knows, she comes to a conclusion about what secret project they were developing, a single word escaping her mouth in a whisper.

"Me."

"What you can do? Yes. But you specifically? No." He replies, "We tried what we had developed on multiple test subjects, all of which were unsuccessful. The project hit a dead end, and HYDRA chose to focus its efforts elsewhere."

She doesn't like how this sounds. The way he uses the term 'test subjects' shows a lot about his character. He holds no reservations in dehumanizing people, and that's only giving her more reason to be afraid.

"For years, I was baffled at how it could've ended that way, because I was almost certain that we had cracked it. The research was scrapped for the fear that anyone actually from S.H.I.E.L.D may find it, so I never got the chance to reflect on our work." He explains, "That is until I heard about you."

"How?"

She's starting to put things together. It's like a sequence, but it's messed up and borderline psychotic; she puts two and two together.

She never understood why HYDRA turned up to her house, why they killed her parents, but now she's starting to figure it out.

"I have my contacts. HYDRA has eyes everywhere." He replies, and his choice of words send yet another chill up her spine, "I was both shocked and amazed to hear about what you're capable of, because of course that means you're the only person alive that's been successful with it. I was relieved to learn that all of HYDRA's work wasn't for nothing."

And that's the final piece of the puzzle. Now she knows why her parents are dead.

"So, that's why you killed my parents? To get me because you knew that they'd never let you take me."

He sighs, exasperated, "Your parents were very stubborn people, Harper. Sometimes they wouldn't listen to reason."

Her anger's been building throughout their conversation, though it's been buried beneath her fear and confusion. That last comment's made it resurface.

"Reason?!" She screams, and she's shaking so violently that she can hear her restraints budging as she lashes out in anger, and even though there's no chance that she can get free she's still trying, "Explain the reason behind murder, you asshole!"

She gets another zap for that, and this one seems even more painful than the previous two. The pain subdues her, and she falls back defeatedly as she waits for it to pass, eyes closed as she tries to hide the effects from showing on her face. When she opens them again, he's sitting back down on his chair again, a small file now in hand.

"We found this right after you disappeared that day." He explains, holding the file up for her to see before beginning to rifle through it, seemingly skim reading it as he talks with a certain tone of satisfaction in his voice that both angers and perplexes her, "It documents how your parents administered the product to you, and how for years it showed no signs of success. You were their lab rat, Harper."

Her gut twists, not only because of him but also because of what he's saying. She doesn't want to, no, she _can't_ accept what he's saying. What he's implying is that her parents used her, and that's just not something they'd do.

Would they?

"You're lying." She says in disbelief, shaking her head as much as the contraption attached to her head will allow, "I don't believe you."

"I don't need you to believe me. I need you to understand what you were to them." He replies, unfazed by her denial, "They may have worked for S.H.I.E.L.D, and they may have been noble for a time, but before long they became greedy and wanted to access power beyond what anyone else was capable of."

She's not crying, but she's getting that burning sensation in her throat that she despises so much. She doesn't want to cry, because if she cries then it means that she's listening to him, and that's the last thing she wants to do. It means that she's accepting what he's suggesting, and she can't...she doesn't want to.

"What do you want?" She asks, face steeled to hide any and all emotions.

"To finish what I started. To make the ultimate weapon for HYDRA. To access what your parents couldn't." He explains, and then he's nodding to the bulkier man to her side, who nods back and crosses to the other side of the room.

Harper struggles to see what he's doing when his back's turned, but when he makes his way back she notices the large syringe in his hand, filled to the brim with an unknown substance, and instantly tenses. He comes back to her side, and she instantly thrashes against him when he roughly grabs the side of her face and turns it away, exposing her neck.

"Get off of me!" She shouts, trying to get out of his grip, but it's too strong and she's panicking and she can't run or fly or teleport herself out of the situation.

And then she's screaming in pain as the needle's roughly jabbed into her neck, and she doesn't know if it's because of the substance or the pain, but she passes out.

* * *

When she comes to, she's in a small cell. Same clothes, but still no sign of her suit or the control panel. She's on a bed, and can she just say that it's nowhere near as comfortable as her bed at home.

Home.

God, Nat and Steve must be worried sick. She knows that Sam will be trying to calm them both, and she's certain that Rhodey's already contacted Tony whilst Wanda's probably preparing to head out as a part of a search party. Vision's likely trying to come up with a logical equation to find her, and she knows that if Thor were here he'd be ready to rip anyone's head off to try and find her. Bruce would probably help Vision try to come up with an algorithm.

The team...her family must be going out of her minds, and it's all her fault. And that's pissed her off.

Standing from her bed, she heads towards the bars of her cell, and she's yelling out into the dark and seemingly vacant hall of whatever facility they've locked her up in angrily.

"Hey! Let me out!" She yells, her voice echoing, and when she gets no response she tries again.

"Let me out of here!"

She reaches forward, grabs the bars and shakes them in what would usually be a futile attempt at gaining attention, but this time it plays out a little differently.

She pulls back on the bar, and instead of it remaining fixed in its place, it comes right off into her hand, creating a gaping hole in the cell door.

"What the hell?" She murmurs, hurriedly discarding the bar to the floor as she looks down at her hands.

That bar was clearly made of metal, yet she was able to move it as if it were made of paper. It's as if she's got super strength or something...except, that's not possible. She can't be that strong.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Ivan asks, stepping out from the shadows of the hallway until he's being illuminated by the dim light of her cell, "A truly remarkable display of strength."

She's baffled, and her eyes are darting between him and her hands, and she hasn't got the sense to make a run for it or attack him because she's beyond confused.

"What did you do to me?" She asks simply, the words falling out instead of being coherently said or thought of, and yet another chill jolts up her spine when he grins at her.

"I made you better, Harper."


	8. 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Torture (kinda)
> 
> I kept it far less descriptive than I could've, but I'd rather be safe. 
> 
> Enjoy!

She doesn't know what day it is. She lost count after a while. In her head, she thinks it's been about two weeks, three at the most. It's hard to tell when the days blend into one.

There's some variation. Some days, they try and get her to use the abilities they given her. For the strength, they'll have her rip pieces of metal apart with her bare hands. It's like tearing paper for her, but she doesn't like doing it because she couldn't do it before and she wouldn't be able to do it if she wasn't taken from her family. Her senses, it turns out, were also enhanced by whatever they injected into her, and she's struggled to adjust to that too.

With the strength, sometimes she'll accidentally push on something too hard and break it, which surprises her but it's not the end of the world. With the senses, sometimes she loses control of them and hears things with a deafening volume, and sometimes that's more painful than the electric shocks.

That's another thing: the shocks. They seem to be intent on using those, if not for punishment for their other plans. If they're not training her new abilities or trying to force her to fight (she always refuses and gets beat down until she's near enough unconscious), they're trying to destroy her mind.

She's heard the term 'reprogramming' thrown around among the scientists, though a lot of the time she can't understand them because a lot of them speak Russian and Russian alone. She knows some of the foreign dialect, but not enough to unpick everything that they say. It's yet another unknown for her to be afraid of.

Sometimes they just repeat ten specific words, shocking her between each one, and she swears that the veins practically burst out of Ivan's head when she doesn't respond in the way that he wants. She doesn't quite understand what they're trying to do, but she believes that they're trying to make her complacent. So far it's not working out for them.

Sometimes they have her just repeat her name and nothing else. It's like a mantra. Over and over and over and she does it eventually because she can't deal with the shocks anymore.

Sometimes they try to convince her that the team are the problem. That HYDRA are actually the good guys and are the ones trying to restore order. They're trying to make her hate her family, presumably so she'll be more inclined to adopt their way of thinking.

That's precisely what's happening right now. She's strapped down to the same chair that she first woke up in, though now her restraints are made out of reinforced steel, and she's been shocked so many times already that she doesn't even consider the possibility of fighting back.

"Who are The Avengers?" Ivan asks her again, peering over at her angrily from a safe distance, two armed bodyguards by his side for protection.

It makes sense. She does want to hurt him.

"My friends. My family." She murmurs exhaustedly, and she's certain that her head would drop if it wasn't for the contraption holding her head up.

Speaking of, it sends yet another jolt of electricity through her head, and she groans in pain as it passes, her eyes scrunching shut in agony.

"Who are The Avengers?" He asks again.

"My family!" She shouts back, eyes opening, and she glares at him through her blurred vision.

She gets another shock for that, and this time a cry of pain slips out despite her attempts to conceal it. She keeps her eyes opening, watching blearily as he stands before her, practically radiating in rage, "You're wrong again! The Avengers are parasites! HYDRA are trying to restore order! We are the ones restoring order!"

He keeps trying to tell her that, but she knows that it's not true. It can't be true, because if it was then they would've let Ultron destroy the world, and they were the ones who stopped him.

"You're wrong!" She protests.

Another shock.

"They used you! They are the enemy!"

"You're lying!"

Another shock.

"They are what's wrong with the world! Anyone who is not HYDRA is the enemy! They must all be eliminated!"

Her ears are aching, if not from the electric shocks from how loud he's screaming at her, and the enhanced senses really aren't helping her there.

Her head's spinning, and she can feel her vision blurring, and even when she's not being shocked she's bracing herself for the next one. She can feel the exhaustion setting in, and it's almost so much that she could just pass out, but then he says something that wakes her up fully.

"The day you kill them all will be a glorious day in the history of HYDRA."

This isn't the first time he's sworn death on her family. Not even close. This is, however, the first time he's made the bold claim that she'll be the one to do it, and his statement alone sends anger coursing through her entire body even stronger than the electricity that keeps shooting through her brain.

She screams, ripping the steel shackles binding her to the chair right off despite her fatigue, and Ivan seems stunned, even stepping back slightly as she rises out of the chair. One of the bulkier men instantly comes towards her to try and detain her, but she fights back when he reaches her.

Striking him in the chest, she seems him flying across the room and into the back wall, and he slumps down to the ground like a sack of potatoes from the force.

Perhaps she should care, but she doesn't.

She fights off a second guy, and then a third soon after. It takes the fourth, fifth and sixth men combined to restrain her, and they hold her in their vice like grips as Ivan approaches, accompanied by two of the Russian scientists.

"Prep her. It's ready. While she's under, put a second chip in. I'm done with her outbursts." He tells them in Russian, and it's a miracle she can understand him due to the language barrier and her fatigue, but she just about does.

And then she's feeling yet another needle jab into her neck, the pain just as strong as the last, and then she's slipping out of the world again.

* * *

She's jogging, which doesn't make any sense because the last time she checked she was in that awful HYDRA base. She also recognises where she is. She's taken this path before. In fact, if she turns right...

There it is. Right at the end of the block - her house. She never thought that she'd see it again, and she doesn't understand why she's even here, or why she's out jogging, but she's just happy to see the house she grew up in again. She's so glad that she can't even think straight.

Instead of questioning it, she runs for the house, because she wants to see it so badly and she doesn't see why she shouldn't take the chance to.

She sprints up to the front door, but she stops herself when she realises that she doesn't have her keys. They're usually in her pocket, but upon further inspection she doesn't seem to have them. Not even a single key, in fact.

Instead, she tries the door, and she's surprised to find it open. Heading inside, she turns into the living room, hesitant on what she may find, and what she comes across is not what she was expecting in the slightest.

The haunting sight of her parent's dead bodies remain on the living room floor where she first saw them, and to accompany them are the masked HYDRA assassins that were sent to kill them.

She doesn't understand why they're here. She doesn't understand why she's here, and she doesn't get why she's seeing this. None of this is making sense, and she's trying to teleport herself away, except this time it's not working despite her best efforts.

So she stands there, frozen like a statue in front of the group of murderers, and one of them moves to pull the mask from their face rather suddenly, pulling the fabric away and revealing the face beneath.

It's Mr Stark.

"No. No. No."

The next mask comes off.

Steve.

And the next.

Thor.

And the next.

Clint. And then Bruce.

Perhaps the worst, the one that feels like a true stab to the heart, comes last.

Nat.

"Nat?"

Her voice cracks painfully, her face twisting into an expression of pure anguish that only gets worse when Nat smirks at her.

"They deserved it."

This can't be happening. This can't be it. She's lived this already. She knows that it wasn't them. It was HYDRA. It had to have been HYDRA. This can't be what happened. This isn't what happened. She refuses to except this.

Thor steps forward, his large hand closing around her neck in a vice like grip as he hoists her off the ground by throat, choking the life out of her with little to no effort.

She trashes in the air, trying to fight back with any and everything she has, but none of her powers are working and she can't match the strength of the Demi-God.

She glances over at the others as he closes off her airways, her eyes meeting Tony's in desperation as she manages to gasp out a few words in a last ditch effort.

"Mr Stark! Help!"

"Why would I do that?"

She's back in the HYDRA base after that, back in the place she was forced into unconsciousness, and Ivan's sat in a chair opposite, watching her from a safe distance.

She's back in the restraints, and she can't break out of them like before. Whatever they did to her, it contained the strength they gave her like they managed to contain her other abilities. She really wishes they hadn't prohibited her healing, because all the injuries she's sustained whilst being here have had to heal the normal way.

She really feels the effect of that when she first wakes up.

"Harper." He says, drawing her attention, "Did you see the truth?"

She knows what he's trying to do here. He's trying to make her hate her family. He's trying to lie his way into getting what he wants.

She sees through him.

"That wasn't real." She murmurs, and then she's bursting into anger when she thinks about the truth, "That wasn't what happened! They didn't kill my parents! You did!"

He sighs exasperatedly, and then he's reaching for the same sharp syringe as before and approaching her again.

Here we go again.


	9. 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: torture and brainwashing to an extent

She can see the spots in front of her eyes as she gets struck in the head yet again, and then she's hitting the ground again with a thud that echoes through the dimly lit room, and even then most of the light is being blocked out by her tall opponent who's looming over her.

They keep trying to get her to fight. They want her to learn their techniques, and she's been refusing for multiple reasons. If she fights, then she's listening to what they're saying, and she doesn't want to obey them because that means she's giving in. She's been observant, however, and as time's gone on she's learnt their fighting style, meaning that she's been able to dodge some of the attacks thrown her way.

That's not to say that she can dodge all of them, because she's still got enough bruises and cuts to prove that to not be the case.

"Get up!" Her opponent instructs coldly in Russian, and she shakes her bleary head weakly.

She doesn't want to fight, and even if she did she wouldn't stand a chance without her powers against this guy. He's closer to a tank than he is to a person, and she doesn't understand how he's okay with knowing that he's beating the crap out of a teenage girl as a part of his job.

He must be pretty screwed up.

"I-I'm not fighting!" She splutters, trying and failing to pull herself to her feet, and she's so weak that she doesn't even turn her head when she hears the door creek open loudly.

"If you do not fight in this world, you'll be dragged down and crushed beneath the feet of everyone else."

She winces, and not from the pain.

Ivan. He only comes in when she's here for one reason, and it's not one she's a fan of.

"Grab her."

She tries to scramble away, and she probably looks like an injured animal trying to escape certain death from its predator after being wounded. She must look pathetic.

She's being pulled to her feet by two sets of strong arms, and they drag her limp body through the dark hall, and her blurred vision tries to focus on the white lab coat of Ivan as he walks ahead of her, because there's nothing else for her to focus on and she's scared of passing out again.

When she's out, she doesn't know what's going on. It's what's been preventing her from sleeping as much as she should. She doesn't want to fall asleep in case something happens. They've drugged her before when she's been out. She knows because she can feel the sting from the needle in her neck when she finally comes too.

She's being thrown into the chair and strapped into it soon after, and she's so beat up that she doesn't have the strength to fight back. Besides, the second chip that they stuck in her even locked away the powers that they gave her, and though she's trained in hand to hand combat, she knows it's not gonna get her very far here.

She doesn't know what it's gonna be today, but she can feel the contraption that shocks her being strapped to her head, and then she recognises the book that Ivan grabs as he takes a seat in front of her.

And then he's reciting those same words again, and she's being shocked between each one as per usual.

"Longing. Sokovia. Shield. Twenty. Zero. One. Jet. Bullet. Light. Russia."

She's heard those ten words more times than she can count. She doesn't understand why they keep saying it, but it's gotten to the point that she braces herself for the shocks before they even come. They keep going until she's so far gone that she can't even respond, and when that happens they just throw her back in her cell for a few hours before going again.

It's a miracle her brain hasn't turned to mush at this point.

"Go again."

She hears the ten words again, the shocks splitting through her brain in waves of pure agony, and she determines that there's no worse pain in the world than this. Even when she was getting the crap beaten out of her, she could cope.

After the final word, he stops, and then he's looking at her directly and asking a simple question, "Who are you?"

It's easy enough to answer, because she knows who she is and what she stands for, and she refuses to give into what they're trying to make her become.

"I'm an Avenger!" She shouts back, because she's not about to let go of that fact despite their attempts at making her do so.

She doesn't know how long she's been here for. She stopped keeping track a while ago, when it became difficult for her to determine one day from the next. What she's certain of, however, is that the team is looking for her. There's no way that they aren't. They'll find her soon, surely.

"Longing. Sokovia. Shield. Twenty. Zero. One. Jet. Bullet. Light. Russia."

He rolls through the words again, the shocks hitting her as scheduled, and she's beginning to feel the effects of them now. Her head feels like it's all over the place, and she's struggling to concentrate even more than she was before (if that's even possible).

She hardly hears him when he asks his question again.

"Who are you?"

She's struggling. She knows it, and she feels like he does too.

"I'm...I'm..." She murmurs, because she's struggling to form a coherent sentence or piece together her thoughts, and it takes her a moment to pull it off. When she does, it's not the answer he's looking for.

"I'm Harper Eddins, and I'm an Avenger!"

She can see it in his face even through her blurred vision. He's pissed off.

"Why isn't she responding properly?" He asks angrily, turning to one of the other scientists in the room, "We've been doing this for long enough now! Why aren't we seeing results?"

"It's due to her enhanced brain capacity, sir. It's going to take more than for a normal per-."

"What about the chip? Why isn't the chip doing anything about that?" He snaps, cutting over the other scientist mid explanation.

He's clearly not in the mood to wait around for an answer. Sure, Ivan's not exactly the calmest person, but he's not usually this erratic.

"The chip can only deal with the teleportation, healing and Photokinesis, sir. It can't block he-."

"Either you stick one of those chips into her skull or you shock her until she's a blank slate!"

She winces, not only from the pain but also because of the harsh tone in his voice. He's practically hissing, and she doesn't like the sound of it.

No one at home ever sounded like that. She misses home a lot.

"We're making progress, sir. The hallucinogens are beginning to distort her mem-."

"They're not distorting them fast enough!" Ivan screeches, pointing a sharp finger towards her whilst keeping his eyes on the scientist that he's screaming at, "We lost Barnes, so she's the alternative! She is to be the new fist of HYDRA!"

That's something she refuses to become. She's not about to let them use her for their evil and cruel purposes.

She's never heard him mention 'Barnes' before, and even though her head's scrambled, she takes note of it. Barnes sounds like a person, but who that person is is unknown to her.

She has a feeling that he's someone like her: enhanced, been misused by HYDRA; he's probably been trained to be a killer. That's what they're trying to make her into.

She hears him sigh exasperatedly, his anger seemingly subdued for the moment, and she hears him say something in Russian to one of the other scientists as he makes his way for the door.

"Keep working. We need to build her into the ultimate weapon."


	10. 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @starkcontrast...I'm sorry in advance XD

"Sir, it's them!"

Harper refocuses her attention when one of the guards of the facility bursts into the dimly lit lab, a panicked expression plastered across his face. It's not exactly a fitting expression given his bulky and muscular stature.

They've been prepping her in the lab for a while now. She doesn't know for what exactly, but she knows that it can't be good because she's never had to go through this much preparation before. She would say that she's relieved for the interruption, but she honestly doesn't know how to feel anymore.

A lot of things just feel blank now. Everything's the same, and she goes through the same processes day in, day out. It's like a nightmare on repeat, and she feels like she's never gonna break the vicious cycle.

Well, at least, that's what she thought.

Her head may be scrambled, and she may feel like everything is bland and meaningless, but she's able to focus up for long enough to figure out who the bumbling guard is talking about.

It's the Avengers.

"They taken down the entire guard across all of the wings! We're defenseless!" The guard shouts, his voice showing a mixture of anger and fear, and Harper notices the frustrated expression that crosses Ivan's face.

He takes a moment, clearly trying to figure out what to do, and then his eyes land on her and they remain on her as she addresses the guard and remaining scientists in the room, "Forget the wipe. Activate her, and rip out the second chip."

She instinctively recoils, because she doesn't like where this is headed. She doesn't like what he's suggesting, because she's been through it before for training exercises and she knows what happens. She loses control. She becomes like a mindless robot.

She becomes what they want her to be, and the worst part is that she tends to remember a lot of what she does. Not all of the details, but the general gist of it at least.

"What about the first?" One of the scientists ask tentatively, and the look that Ivan gives him would be enough to make anyone shy away fearfully.

"She doesn't need it! What we've given her will be enough!" Ivan screams back, and then he's storming across the room to prep the machines himself, and Harper knows that he's serious because every other time he's had someone else do it for him.

He moves in front of her again, not even sitting down as he does usually, and he's reciting the words from memory rather than from the book this time.

"Longing. Sokovia. Shield."

"Stop it!" She yells above his voice, desperately trying to hold onto herself as the words continue to ring through the lab.

She doesn't want this. She doesn't want to lose control. She doesn't want to conform to what they want.

"Twenty. Zero. One."

"I mean it! Stop!"

"Jet. Bullet. Light. Russia." He finishes off the string of words, and then she's gone, her head hanging low as she awaits for her next instruction.

She's a blank slate awaiting for orders. This time, she's only got one.

"Kill them all."

* * *

"Harper?"

She finds them at the east side of the facility. Well, three of them to be precise. Steve, Sam and Wanda, though to her they don't mean enough to be thought of by name. They're her mission, her objective.

She strikes Sam first, hitting him directly in the chest with an overwhelming level of strength that sends him flying back, and it's with such a force that if it were not for his suit, he'd have a few broken bones. He lands a good twenty feet away from her, sliding against the concrete ground until his body comes to a halt, and he's groaning in pain as he struggles to get back onto his feet.

Before Wanda or Steve can even react to what's going on, she's running at Sam, and his nose audibly cracks as her fists collide with his face. She's relentless, her one and only intention being to kill. She's been told to kill them all, so that's what she's gonna do. That's what she has to do.

He's trying to yell something at her as she's attacking him, but she's not listening. Why would she listen? He's part of her mission.

She's forced to stop when she feels some kind of invisible force take control of her hands. She turns around, eyes burning with rage, and glares directly at Wanda, who's using her powers to try and contain her attack. Red wisps are surrounding her hands, and even her strength isn't enough to fight back against her hold.

Wanda misses something though, and she plays on that weakness.

Stomping her foot with an equal level of strength that her arms are capable of, she generates a force that travels through the ground in the form of powerful tremor, the force of which is enough to disorientate Wanda long enough for her to break free.

"Harper, slow down!" Steve orders, approaching her half tentatively and half threateningly, shield raised

He doesn't want to fight her, but it doesn't look like he's gonna have much of a choice.

She, on the other hand, doesn't think twice about fighting against him. In fact, that's the only goal she has.

She swings for him with full force, her hands latching onto his shield and ripping it right from his hands after some struggle. Unlike Wanda and Sam, he possesses a level of physical strength that rivals her own. She launches it away, and then she's swinging for his face, and he moves to block each and every one of her attacks.

That pisses her off.

She's relentless, continuously going at him even when he blocks her off. He doesn't swing back, only knocking her back each time with enough force to set her back but not harm her; she's aiming to kill and nothing else.

She gets him eventually, because she learns his pattern and knows how to counter it. When he goes to block, she pulls back and strikes elsewhere, her fist colliding with his gut and making him groan in pain. She strikes him across the face during the brief moment he's distracted, and then he's being launched away from the pure force of the strike.

She turns, because now that he's down she has the chance to finish him off, but then Wanda gains a hold of her again, and she's being launched across the room into a nearby wall, temporarily incapacitating her.

The three of them regroup and take cover whilst she's down, Wanda and Sam both grouping together whilst Steve remains on his own, watching Harper's limp body from a safe distance.

He knows they haven't got long until she gets up again.

"What do we do, Cap?" Sam asks over comms, and Steve can tell just from his voice how badly hurt he is.

They've got to do something fast, and for once he's not sure how to go about it. He's seen Harper, and he can see how injured she is. He couldn't even count the amount of cuts and bruises he saw on her, and he doesn't understand why that is because surely she'd be healing.

Forget that. He doesn't understand why she's suddenly as physically strong as he is. None of it's adding up, and he knows by the way that she's stirring that they don't have long to figure that out.

"Detain her without hurting her, if possible. She already looks injured enough." He replies after considering their options for a moment, because they came to rescue her not cause her more harm.

"Why hasn't she healed?" Wanda asks, sounding confused, "Those wounds don't look fresh."

"They've done something to her. I don't know what, but the priority is getting her out of here. We can ask questions later." He says, and then he's switching to the other channel of the comms system quickly before continuing, "Romanoff, we found her."

He hears her sigh over the system, and he swears he's never heard her sound so relieved before. Not even when they found out that Fury was alive.

"Where is she?"

"East side of the building. We're gonna need some backup." He replies, and he pauses for a moment because he knows he has to be careful with his next words, "They got to her, Nat. I think it's like what happened to Bucky."

He recognises how she's acting. Her movements are robotic and don't seem to be driven by anything other than anger and the necessity to complete her actions. She's not Harper. She's someone else. She's just like how Bucky was.

"Cap!"

He jumps up when Sam calls out to him, just about catching his shield when his injured friend sends it his way and holding onto it as Harper gets herself up again, and she comes charging at him with nothing but pure rage in her eyes.

He blocks her fists with his shield when she goes to strike him again, and it becomes a futile fight soon after, with him trying to stop her without harming her anymore then she already has been. Given that he's not really fighting back, it's no surprise when she gets the upper hand yet again and strikes him away again, and when he lands on the ground she advances towards him.

She knows what she's doing now. She's trying to finish him off while he's down.

He tries to back up as she approaches, but she's moving far faster than he is, and she reaches him easily and reaches forward, dragging him up by gripping his neck tightly. He gasps for air, clawing at her hand as she lifts him high above even herself with ease, an unyielding and blank look in her eyes, and she almost succeeds in choking him into unconsciousness when Wanda reappears, having left Sam somewhere safe because he's no longer in any condition to fight after the beating he took, and she doesn't make the same mistake as she did last time.

Harper loses her grip on him when Wanda grips onto her again, and once he's recomposed himself Steve can see that the former Sokovian is struggling to keep ahold of the writhing girl in her grip. Wanda hasn't had enough time to train for this kind of thing and it shows. She's not used to having to grip onto things for so long using her abilities. They haven't exactly been that focused on training since Harper went missing.

Because of that, it comes as no surprise when she loses control and Harper breaks free again, and for a moment Steve's scared that she's going to focus all of her murderous efforts on Wanda, but then the perfect distraction arrives just in time.

"Harper!" Nat shouts, running in with concern, relief and many other emotions that are too complicated to decipher right now written across her face.

Steve notices that there's no sign of Rhodey or Vision. He figures they must be clearing out the facility from the inside out.

Nat looks relieved to see Harper. Harper looks...well, she looks murderous.

She turns back to Wanda briefly, catching her off guard when she does, and she strikes her in a similar way that she did to Sam, sending her to the other side of the room without much effort, and he doesn't miss the expression that crosses Natasha's face at the sight.

The two of them make eye contact for the briefest of moments amongst all the chaos, because realistically with both Sam and Wanda incapacitated it's just the two of them against Harper now until backup arrives.

Steve's noticed a lot about Natasha Romanoff from the time he's spent working alongside her. Sometimes she doesn't show any emotion. She remains pragmatic and doesn't allow anything to stop her from fulfilling the task that she needs to do. Rarely, she'll back down and let someone else deal with the task, because if there's something he's learnt about Nat it's that she often finishes what she sets out to do and often without the help (or much of it) from others.

Right now, he's seeing neither of those common Natasha traits. The look they share is like a silent exchange, and this time she's the one talking. He gets the message loud and clear.

She wants him to let her handle this.

He's not exactly on board with the idea. He's seen Nat take Harper down multiple times during training sessions in the past, but so has he and she still managed to take him down without much struggle. Sam and Wanda are already down, and he doesn't exactly want anymore of his teammates to get injured, but he doesn't exactly have a choice when Harper sets her sights on Nat next anyway.

The two of them fight, and the difference is that Nat actually fights back. He knows she's noticed the cuts and bruises - he could tell by the concerned expression on her face - and he doesn't miss the way she intentionally aims her attacks away from those specific, visible points of injury.

There's a point where Harper seems to gain the upper hand, and he feels like he should step in and do something, but Nat gives him a look and he backs down. She has a plan, he knows it, and he trusts her. She knows what she's doing.

She resorts to using the Widow's Bite on Harper eventually, because it becomes clear that hand to hand combat isn't going to be enough, and it works enough to send Harper convulsing to the ground as the electricity courses through her.

He looks to Nat, because he knows that it's only a matter of time before Harper gets back up again, and he notices the pained expression that's stuck on her face as she watches Harper writhe in pain at her feet.

He can't really bring himself to look either. It's not the kind of image he wants floating around in his head. He can't even bring himself to look even when he knows that she's stopped writhing because she's passed out.

He does, however, look at Nat, and he sees something in her eyes that he hasn't seen in quite a while: tears. Perhaps from sorrow, or maybe even relief, but they're there for only a moment before they're gone, and she's looking at him with a steeled gaze.

"Let's get her out of here before she wakes up again." She says simply, "S.H.I.E.L.D's gonna raid the place, so we should get out of here before that happens."

He nods, reaching down to pick up Harper's battered and bruised body, and even though they technically accomplished what they set out to do on their mission, it doesn't exactly feel like a success.


	11. 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Emotions. That's all I'm gonna say.

It's quiet when she wakes up, and she doesn't like that. Whenever it's quiet, that usually means they're off preparing the equipment to shock her with. Or getting someone ready to train her.

She's not a fan of either.

It's not silent, however, as she hears the incessant and annoying sound of something beeping. It's steady, but it's making her ears twinge painfully, and she doesn't understand because there's nothing in her cell that beeps like this and...

Unless, she's not in her cell.

She opens her eyes, instantly confirming her suspicions when she sees how bright the room she's in is. Her cell has never been this bright. She goes to sit up next, but she's surprised to find it to be a struggle. She groans, only barely manage to sit up, and it's when she does she notices the wires protruding from her arms and begins to panic.

What else could they be drugging her with? She's seen this sight before, and it's never led to good things.

She's hyperventilating without even realising it, and she only seems to do it more when she feels someone reach out to her, a hand going over her own clammy one.

"Hey. You're okay."

She turns, her frantic eyes making contact with Nat's exhausted ones, and for a minute she doesn't know how to react.

The last time she saw Nat...no, that wasn't her. That wasn't any of them. She knows that.

Nat looks cautious, and it's clear that she's holding back whatever it is that's on her mind. She watching patiently, and it's also clear that she's waiting for a response of some kind.

She looks relieved, and also tired, and Harper notices that her hair's longer. It's grown a lot since she last saw her, and that makes her mind drift to how long she must've been gone for, and in that she begins to think about everything that's happened.

It's foggy. She never remembers everything when she loses control, but she knows that she fought against the team. She hurt them, though she can't remember who she hurt the most. It all just becomes a blur after a while - a blur of violence and hatred and everything she doesn't want to be. She despises it.

She recoils, pulling her hand out from underneath Nat's. She looks surprised, but she doesn't say anything. Harper turns to the wires in her arms, clasping her hand over the one in her arm and tugging, stopping when she feels resistance and wincing.

"Don't pull at those." Nat tells her, though her voice is soft and not demanding in the slightest, and then she says something else before Harper can try again, "Do you know who I am?"

It puzzles her, because how could she not know who she is? They wanted her to forget. They wanted her to forget about all of them, and they almost pulled it off. She thinks that the worst part about it was that they were trying to make her hate them all. No matter how many shocks to the brain she got, she couldn't bring herself to do it. There were times where it was close, but she never fell off the edge.

So, she nods, and the relief that crosses Nat's face at her response is unparalleled. She waits a moment after it fades, and then she's asking her next question.

"Do you know who you are?"

It's simple enough to answer, but Harper finds herself struggling. It's not because she doesn't know the answer, because she definitely does no matter what they tried to make her believe and become, but she's heard that question so many times that all she can hear is _him_.

She doesn't hear the soft and kind voice of Nat. She hears his harsh and cold one.

_"Who are you?"_

It echoes through her mind, and it takes her more than a few moments to snap out of that headspace long enough to provide her with answer in the form of a nod.

Nat seems relieved again, but she doesn't push anything, instead waiting until Harper seems to settle slightly before speaking again, "S.H.I.E.L.D arrested the people who hurt you. They're gone."

She's come to realise that pain's a cycle. She's been stuck in it for far too long, and while that's awful, it's nowhere near as bad as pulling the people you care about into that.

And though her memory's foggy, she knows that she pulled the people she cares about into it with her.

"I hurt you." She murmurs, voice cracking from lack of use, and the shame that's in her voice is apparent.

Nat doesn't entertain it.

"It wasn't you." Nat replies softly, "You couldn't control it."

She knows that true, but it doesn't make her feel any better about it all.

Her mind wanders, and the next thought that emerges from the seemingly endless pit of thoughts in her mind is one regarding her newfound abilities, more specifically the chips that were blocking them. She can feel pain still, and she can see that some of the bruises on her arm still haven't faded, which makes her think that one of the chips is still in.

She glances at the arm she remembers it being in, and Nat seems to notice, providing her with an answer to her unspoken question.

"They found it and took it out. Your abilities should be fully functional again, but you had so many injuries it's taking some time for them all to heal." She explains, and Harper doesn't miss the grimace that crosses her face as she says that.

"What day is it?" Harper asks her suddenly, "How long was I stuck there for?"

She lost count, but she knows that it must've been for a while given that Nat's hair has grown out quite a bit.

"Two months."

"Two months?"

She knew it had to have been a while, but she didn't think it had been _that_ long.

"It wasn't easy to track you down."

She tears her eyes away from her arm to look at Nat; she notices the guilty expression on her face, and she doesn't know what to say. Part of her is angry, because she was stuck in that hell hole for two whole months, and even if it may have been difficult to find her, she would've thought they'd have done it faster than that. The other part of her, the more rational part, doesn't want her to feel like that, because she knows that if they could've found her sooner they would have.

She keeps her mouth shut on the matter, because right now she's scared that the rational part of herself isn't quite in control, and she doesn't want to say anything she doesn't mean. She doesn't want to hurt anyone anymore.

She does, however, want to talk. She wants to talk because she wants to put it all behind her, and she's experiencing a sense of comfort right now that she hasn't felt in far too long. She feels safe with Nat. Safe enough to talk about it.

"You know, when they weren't shocking the shit out of my brain or trying to get me to fight, they were drugging me." She says, "Whatever they gave me, it made me see some awful shit."

Nat doesn't say anything, but the look she gives her tells her enough.

"I kept going back to the day that my parents died, but the difference was that I didn't teleport away. I couldn't, actually." She continues, unintentionally grimacing at the memory that she can't seem to escape no matter how much she tries, "I had to see their bodies again, and can I just say that really fucks with your head."

No comment about her bad language. She just keeps listening. So Harper keeps going.

"They wanted to make me hate you guys. Perhaps if he had wiped my brain like he was going to, it would've worked, because all those shocks to my brain sure didn't no matter how much they hurt. I had to see my parents dead bodies, and instead of their killers being HYDRA agents, I kept seeing you guys. Sometimes it was all of you, and sometimes it was only some of you, but one of you would always ending up killing me in the end, too."

Nat reacts to that last part, which is saying something because she's literally been trained to prevent that from happening. She looks horrified.

"Did I ever...?"

Harper grimaces, "Most of the time, actually."

She hated that the most. Nat was always the one she'd go to whenever she had nightmares, and though she was close to the whole team, she always felt safest around her. Her nightmares didn't stop while she was trapped there. If anything, they only got worse, and it killed her that she couldn't even think about Nat - couldn't even try to hear her soothing words in her mind - when they came, because half of the time she just kept associating her to that damn hallucination.

It wasn't real, but it hurt even more than any of the shocks ever did.

"Did you ever think it was real?"

"Once. The first time you killed me." She replies honestly, and the expression that crosses Nat's face is unlike anything she's ever seen on the woman's face. She keeps going, "For a while, I got it into my head that you guys would actually hurt me. Turns out I'm the one who ended up hurting you guys."

She doesn't think she'll ever be able to move on from that - hurting them.

"Do you still believe it?" Nat asks, tone almost desperate, "Do you think I'm going to hurt you?"

Harper shakes her head in an instant, and the desperation is replaced by relief.

"No. And I know now that what I saw wasn't real. What they tried to make me believe...I may have believed it at some point, but I don't anymore." She says with certainty, because that's something she knows for sure, "I'm not what they tried to make me become."

Nat nods, and then her voice is cracking as she says her next two words.

"I'm sorry."

Harper hugs her then, reaching over with much struggle due to the wiring in her arms, and then she's gripping onto the older woman tightly just like how she used to. It's just like how it was before, only the difference here is that she's not the only one crying.

She doesn't say anything about it, and she doesn't break the hug.

She doesn't want to, and she's sure that Nat doesn't either.

* * *

Mr Stark gives her a hug when he visits, which surprises her more than anything. He's not the first who comes in to see her - that goes to Steve, who came in with Wanda and Vision not long after both her and Nat stopped crying. No one noticed that the latter had been, which was probably for the best. Sam hasn't been to see her yet, and when she asked Steve about it he said that he'd come by eventually. He told her that everything's fine.

She doesn't believe him.

When Mr Stark pulls back from the hug, he keeps a reassuring hand placed on her non-injured shoulder, and the comment he makes is enough to make her chuckle for the first time in a long while, "I was gonna bring you a cheeseburger, but I ate it on the way over."

"It doesn't matter, Mr Stark." She replies, smiling tiredly, "Once I'm out of here, we can go and get the best cheeseburgers available. I've really missed them."

Food really wasn't good there. She missed food that didn't taste like...plainness. That's the only way she can describe the food that they gave her.

It was really shit.

"It's a deal, kid." He replies, smiling, and she appreciates that he's trying to keep the conversation lighthearted, because that's really what she needs right now.

It's kinda hard for her to look on the bright side at the minute, so she's glad that someone else still can.

When he leaves, it's just her and Nat again. She hasn't left once, and Harper appreciates that because it's a constant. Constants comfort her, because she knows that even if everything else falls apart, she still has something that remains the same.

She lost that when she was trapped there.

She lost Nat.

She lost her family.

She lost everything she loves, and she's beyond grateful to finally have it all back.

"You alright?" Nat asks her, taking a seat by her side and placing a comforting hand on her shoulder like Mr Stark did before.

She is. Well, other than having more cuts and bruises than she ever has (even before her powers), and having to cope with a constant impending sense of fear, and the latter pisses her off the most because she should feel safe. She knows that Nat's not going to hurt her, and she knows that _he_ can't get to her again, but she just can't shake it.

She nods back, and she can tell by her expression that Nat's not buying it, but she doesn't say anything about it.

"Do you want me to leave you to yourself for a while?" She asks, and Harper shakes her head frantically, her eyes going wide in panic without her even realising it, and Nat's quick to reassure her before she spirals into a full on panic attack, speaking to her softly and giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"It's okay. You're okay." She soothes, "I'm not going anywhere."

She ends up crying for the second time, and Nat doesn't say anything, just pulls her into an embrace and runs her hands through her hair soothingly whilst muttering reassurances.

It's kinda like her nightmares, except now she's living it constantly.

* * *

"Hey, Sam."

Sam was the only one who didn't come to visit her earlier, and from looking at him she understands why.

She finds him in the common area, which is surprising given the state of him. Not that she's looking her best or anything, but Sam's not exactly in the best condition.

Which is why she's so surprised to find him in the common room, reclined back into the couch casually and watching some TV.

All things considered, they've done a good job at cleaning him up, but you can see where his nose is broken. She doesn't remember her attack on him specifically, but given her newfound strength it wouldn't have taken many hits to cause him that kind of damage.

"Hey, kid." He replies as she tentatively takes a seat on the chair opposite him, and she notices that he tries to smile but it only comes off more as a grimace if anything, "Who knew you were that strong, huh?"

His tone is playful, not bitter. Classic Sam, she figures.

She appreciates him trying to lighten the mood, but as she looks at his battered and bruised face and only sees one thing.

She's caused this. She's the reason his face is that way, and it's tearing her up inside.

"I-I'm so sorry." She murmurs after a few moments, because she honestly doesn't know what else to say.

What else can she say? There's nothing that she can say to fix this. She can't time travel, so it's not like she can just go back and prevent any of it from ever happening.

"You don't have to be sorry." Sam replies with genuine sincerity, "I should've put up more of a fight."

She looks at him in disbelief, because even with her enhanced mind she can't comprehend how he can be trying to put the blame for all of this onto himself. She was the one who hurt him. She may have not have had control, but she still hurt someone that she cares about.

"You can't mean that." She says, shaking her head incessantly, and then she's stumbling over her words as she tries to get the next part out, "This is all my fault. I'm...I'm-."

She's a monster. At least that's all she sees.

Sam, on the other hand, sees something totally different.

"You're not anything other than yourself, Harper."

That's the thing about Sam. He's not one to tolerate any crap. If someone says something he doesn't agree with, he's not one to stand idly by and just pretend to agree. He speaks his mind, and that's something that Harper admires about him.

Still, she still can't understand how he doesn't want to at least harm her after she did what she did to him.

"They tried to change you, didn't they?"

The question seems to come out of nowhere, but then again perhaps it was the next logical one to ask.

She nods, because they did try to change her. Part of her likes to think that it didn't work, because they tried to make her hate her family and that didn't exactly pan out. But then she remembers that they managed to program her to lose control after hearing ten simple words, and in that sense they did change her.

"It didn't work."

She looks at Sam in disbelief yet again, practically shouting without even meaning to, "What do you mean? I did this to you!"

"A broken nose is nothing. I've had worse." Sam says dismissively, and whilst she knows that's true, it doesn't take away from what's happened.

"But it shouldn't have happened in the first place!"

"None of it should've, but it still did because of that son of a bitch who took you." He replies, and she can tell that he's getting angry from just talking about it, but he takes a moment to calm himself before continuing when he sees her startled expression, "Whoever he tried to make you become, it didn't work."

"How can you say that?"

She appreciates that Sam is still trying to view her in a positive light despite everything that's happened, but she just doesn't understand how he can.

"Because I still see the kid who beats me at bowling games, and cracks jokes with me at Cap's expense. No matter what you've done, or what you've done to others, you're still _you_, Harper."

He says it with such sincerity that despite her doubts, Harper can't find it in herself to question him this time around. Part of her had thought that he was only saying all of this to make her feel better, because even though Sam can be blunt and brutally honest at times, he also has a heart.

He sees her as no different as he did before this mess, and because of that she knows she can get over this.

She has her family back.


	12. 12

October 16th, 2015

"My senses are sharper, too." Harper explains, "They tried to add more. Apparently enhanced speed was a bust."

She's currently in one of the conference rooms of the facility. Fury and Hill are opposite her, both listening intently to her explanation about what happened to her whilst she was trapped there. She's left out some details, mostly because she doesn't want to have to revisit them herself, but Fury was surprisingly okay with her doing that, as he told her right at the start that what she would be willing to tell them would likely be enough.

She also doesn't want to talk about a lot of it in detail because Nat and Steve are here. The latter's at the back of the room, standing against the wall with his arms crossed as he listens just as well as Fury and Hill. Nat's sat by her side, and though out of the team she's disclosed the most to the older woman, there's some things that need to remain undisclosed.

She pauses for a moment, thinking carefully about what to say next, because she knows that there's a lot to work through.

"He said he was trying to make me better. He wanted to me to be the new fist of HYDRA. Said I was replacing someone called Barnes."

She hears someone's heartbeat hitch and then pick up in pace, and then Steve is walking over to the table and taking a seat in the empty chair to her other side, a single word sounding in the form of a question, "Bucky?"

She doesn't have a clue who this Bucky is, but she can tell by the way his heart's beating that he means something to him.

"Who?" She asks, perplexed.

"He's my friend." Steve replies, sighing, "I could see it when you were fighting against me. I could tell they had done something like what they did to him to you."

She can see it in his face. His expression is both wistful and regretful. It's a sad expression to see, especially on Steve.

She's curious about this 'Bucky' person, but she knows that now isn't the time to pry. She can find out more when she's done with all of this.

Turning back to Fury and Hill, she continues her explanation.

"They used trigger words. Ten of them. If a single person says all ten in a row, I lose control. I'm like a robot that's under the control of whoever says the words."

She knows what her words are. She can say them, because it's not like she can set herself off.

"When we raided the place, we found these." Hill says, placing two familiar looking files down in front of Harper, and the girl recognises both of them upon closer inspection.

The lighter of the two in color she recognises first, mostly because Ivan would taunt her with it's contents more often than she can even count.

"My parents are the reason I have my powers. They did what Ivan couldn't, and that pissed him off. That's why he came after me." She explains, and she knows that everyone's eyes are on her, but hers just remain on the files.

It's kinda funny, in a grim sorta way. All that work they put in all those years has been reduced to just a mere file and her. She would say that it's what they deserved, but she honestly doesn't know what to think of her parents anymore.

Being trapped there, she didn't exactly have much time to think about how she feels about her parents now that she knows the truth. She should probably be pissed off (they did use her as their science experiment, after all), but she just can't bring herself to feel that way.

She wishes she could just see them once last time. Even if she only had the chance to ask them a single question, at least it would give her some clarity.

"This file details everything they did to me."

She pushes the file back towards Fury and Hill, because she knows that if she doesn't, Nat or Steve may end up reading it, and whilst there's nothing in there that's absolutely horrific, in Harper's eyes, the more people that read the file makes her feel even more like just a lab experiment.

She likes to think that she's more than that.

"What about the other one?"

Harper reaches for the second file, spinning it towards her and quickly reading the code on the front just to check that it's what she thinks it is.

"That one's got everything they did to me whilst I was there. I don't even know half the stuff that's in it, but I know the trigger words are in there somewhere."

She hears another heartbeat jump, though she's not sure whose it is this time. She thinks it's Nat's, but she can't be sure.

She slides the file back across the table, nodding to Fury and Hill, "Use it for what you need, and then get rid of it. If my parents had gotten rid of their files, then maybe none of this would've happened."

Fury thanks her for her cooperation, and as Hill begins to pack up all of the files and data, she poses a question of her own to them.

"Where is he?"

She doesn't need to specify who 'he' is. Fury knows.

"Detained in a maximum security cell." He replies, "He's not getting out anytime soon."

"I want to talk to him."

Multiple heartbeats change as she says that. She knows it's an odd request, but it's also a simple one.

"You do?" Steve asks, tone surprised and wary, and whilst she understands his concern, she doesn't need him to be.

She turns to him, nodding, "Before you do whatever you're gonna do to him, I want to have a conversation with him."

That's all she wants. A simple conversation. She doesn't think she's asking for much, but Nat seems to feel that way.

"Can I talk to her for a minute?" She asks suddenly, speaking up for the first time since they came into the room, her eyes filtering between Steve, Fury and Hill.

Both Fury and Hill leave, respecting Nat's request, but Steve seems to be reluctant to do the same. Harper watches as he looks at Nat, and she thinks he's silently questioning whether or not he should stay, but then Nat gives him a certain look that she can't quite decipher and he leaves, and Harper feels him pat her reassuringly on the shoulder briefly as he passes out of the room.

She turns to Nat once the door closes behind him, and she quickly figures out what the new expression on her face is showing.

Nat's annoyed.

"What is it, Nat?" She asks, sighing, because she knows that she's likely about to let herself into a long and difficult conversation.

When Nat sets herself on something, it's hard to make her stop.

"I'm not letting that man go within five foot of you ever again. I told myself that the second S.H.I.E.L.D brought him in." Nat tells her adamantly, the protective tone that she reserves for certain people flaring up in her voice.

Harper appreciates it when Nat looks out for her, but sometimes she reminds her of a bear.

She can protect people fiercely, but she can also bite their head off if she wants to. Nat seems to be able to strike a good balance between those two sides for the most part.

"I know what I'm doing, Nat." Harper replies, standing up from her chair to cross the room as she talks.

She's been sat down for so long that she thinks her leg might be going numb, so some walking around could do her some good.

"What if he triggers you like before?"

Harper shrugs, turning back to Nat, "You stop me like before."

The look that Nat gives her is one that anybody rarely sees the woman show. It's one of reluctance.

"I'm not hurting you again."

"I'd rather you hurt me instead of me hurting someone else." Harper counters truthfully. It's a morbid and self deprecating thought, but she's a threat when she loses control. When it comes down to it, it's better for one person to be injured than multiple people.

Nat, on the other hand, seems to see it differently, which is odd considering her job position. For the greater good is the stance she's sorta supposed to take.

"Don't say that." Nat replies, and Harper chooses not to push this specific matter any further because of the way that Nat's looking at her with a mixture of anger and disbelief for her suggestion.

Sighing, Harper continues, "I appreciate you trying to look out for me, Nat, but-."

"We're not having this conversation, Harper." She interjects, tone stern, "You're not doing it."

"Nat, I need you to understand that-."

"I can't understand it, Harper." Nat tells her adamantly, rising out of her seat and crossing the room so she's stood directly opposite her, "I don't know why you'd want to go anywhere near that man after what he did to you."

If you know Natasha Romanoff, then you'll know that she's good at concealing emotions when she wants to. If Nat wanted to, she could hide how she feels from anyone. Right now, however, she's not hiding it, and Harper can see something she's never seen on her before, not even back in Sokovia.

Fear. She's scared, but not for herself. And whilst she understands the feeling, she doesn't need to experiencing it right now because she knows what she's doing.

"I know that you're trying to protect me, Nat, but I don't need you too because it's going to be fine. It's just a conversation, okay? It's one I need to have." She tells her, and she considers her words carefully because she knows that Nat's one wrong word away from making it so she can't have the conversation.

Nat would probably go as far as getting rid of Ivan herself. She thinks that most of the team would if they could, to be honest.

"Then I'm coming with you." Nat replies, surprising Harper.

Obviously she was hoping that Nat would agree, but it seems to kinda come out of nowhere. She'd thought she'd have to try convincing her for just a little bit longer, but she's glad that Nat's at least somewhat onboard.

"Okay." Harper replies, but then she remembers something and stops, and Nat quirks an eyebrow at her.

"What is it?"

"I don't really want you to hear it." She admits, tone sheepish, "The conversation, I mean."

She doesn't know what she expects Nat to do next. The first thought that comes to her mind is that the woman will be angry at her (she's gotten used to people getting angry at her, in fact, and she's spent much of the last two months suffering because of it).

Nat doesn't get mad, and she actually surprises Harper by smirking.

"You really are a pain in my ass. You know that, right?" She quips.

"You love me for it." Harper replies, smirking too.

* * *

"Have you come to gloat or call me something to make yourself feel better?"

Harper takes a seat opposite Ivan within the interrogation room, taking note of the fact that his hands are latched together by a pair of strong cuffs to set her mind at ease.

He can't hurt her if he's stuck like that. Nat's already told her that he's not going to hurt her again, and Nat wouldn't lie to her.

They chose to pull him out of his cell for the conversation, though Harper's not entirely sure why. Perhaps they've still got some questions to ask him.

"I would point out the obvious and call you a piece of shit, but I'm guessing you already know that by now."

It's ironic really, because she was so adamant about having this conversation with him, and though her voice sounds calm and collected, she can't deny that she's scared on the inside. She doesn't want him to know that she's afraid, because she knows how he's wired and she knows that he'll thrive off of that. Besides, Nat's just outside, and if she was under any kind of danger, Nat would get her out of there in an instant.

She's safe. She's totally safe.

He shrugs, tone nonchalant, "Depends on how you look at it."

"I've come to ask how you are."

He looks at her, surprised, "What?"

That's something new. He's seen her rip apart metal with her bare hands, hear the faintest of sounds from hundreds of miles away, but she's still never seen him look surprised.

Until now, that is.

She has to admit, however, that if she were in his position, she'd probably be just as convinced. He put her through torture for two months, so the reason for her visit does seem a bit unorthodox.

There's a reason for it, though.

"I could snap your neck with my bare hands, or blast a hole right through your chest, but I don't want to do either."

The surprise fades from his face, which doesn't surprise her. He knew those facts already. He's part of the reason they're true, after all.

"When I was stuck in that hellhole, there were times that I wanted you dead, and not just because you hurt me. You took me from my family twice, and you tried to get me to hate the people that I care most about. That was the reason I wanted you dead." She explains, and she's unable to prevent the anger from slipping into her voice as she does.

Sure, the pain was unbearable, but the way he messed with her mind was even worse. Pain fades, but she's found that the things that happen to your mind tend to stick around for a lot longer. Take her nightmares as an example.

"Are you gonna tell me why you didn't do it?"

"Patience is a virtue, Ivan." She quips sardonically, her mind drifting back to their first conversation, and it's surprisingly enough to make him quieten down.

"I'm not a killer, even if you tried to turn me into one. I hate you, but I still wanted to speak to you. That's what sets me apart from the super assassin you were trying to turn me into." She explains, taking pride in what she's saying because of the way his expression morphs into frustration the more she goes on, "I don't despise the Avengers, and I still think HYDRA is fucked up, so other than giving me some new powers, you didn't exactly do much."

She can see it on his face: the frustration. He's annoyed, and she can't deny that she's happy about that. She wanted to have this conversation with him as a form of closure, and she feels like seeing him in such a way has given her that in a way.

Does it erase everything that's happened? No, because that'd be wishful thinking, but it's a good start.

"Enjoy your miserable life, Ivan." She replies, and then she's standing up from her seat and making her way for the door, because she's said everything that she wanted to say, but it seems that he hasn't.

"You can never escape me, Harper. Don't you see?"

She stops, though she's not quite sure why, because she could easily just leave, but part of her wants to hear what he has to say, though that's mostly because she doesn't really understand what he's getting at with his previous statement.

"Those words are engrained into your mind, and they're not going anywhere." He taunts, tone sardonic, and it's clear that he's trying to get a rise out of her.

She doesn't want to rise to it, and as of such she continues to make her way for the door, but what he says next sorta just throws all of that out of the window.

"Longing. Sokovia. Shield."

She turns, charging at him and hoisting him up out of his chair with just a single hand, which is clasped tightly around his slim neck. Slamming him against the back wall, she practically screams, "Shut the hell up!"

He smirks, which admittedly isn't how she was expecting him to react to being strangled, but it's so sick and twisted that it catches her eye.

"You can't escape what you are." He says through gasps for air, and his voice is so strangled that if it weren't for her enhanced senses she may struggle to hear him.

She's aware of the door to the room as it swings open, and she's aware of someone telling her to release him, but she doesn't, instead continuing to glare at him angrily.

"Do it." He tells her, sick smirk remaining, and she understands what he's implying in an instant.

She could do it. She's got the strength too, and if she did it then all of this would truly be over. He'd be gone, permanently, and he'd be getting what he deserves for all the pain he put her through. It'd give her closure. She'd be able to finally move on.

"Harper."

It's like a switch that flips back into the right place. She hears another voice, this one softer and more familiar, and all of those dark thoughts go from her mind in an instant, rushing out like a flood through a valley.

She drops him, his slim body crumpling to the floor beneath her, and she storms past the guards as she makes her way for the door. Nat latches onto her shoulder as she passes, but she shrugs her off with ease and keeps storming out, her head hung low in shame.

She's a monster. How could she even consider doing that? She's conforming to exactly what he wanted her to, and she despises herself for it.

Nat catches up to her eventually, overtaking her and stopping her, and though Harper knows that she can just teleport or fly away, she can't bring herself to do it when Nat looks at her with caring eyes and a certain level of concern that she only reserves for few select people.

It's hard to walk away when she does that.

She sighs, "If you're gonna say 'I'd told you so', can you just get it over with?"

"What makes you think I'm gonna say that?" Nat asks, and she generally sounds surprised.

"Payback for me being a pain in the ass."

She tries to be humorous in the hope that it might distract herself from the awful way she feels. It doesn't work.

"Why did you go for him?" Nat asks her after a moment, and Harper looks at her in shock, and Nat seems to catch onto why that is in an instant. She replies, shrugging, "You told me not to listen, so I didn't."

She knows what she said, but part of her thought that Nat still might listen in just out of curiosity. She never explicitly promised that she wouldn't, so it's not like she'd be breaking any promises by doing so.

"He tried to set me off. I stopped him before he could get past the third word." She explains, sighing again, "I don't want to be a threat, Nat, but as long as those trigger words still work, that's what I am. I'm dangerous."

It's a hard realisation to have to come to, but it's one that she has to face. She doesn't want to consider herself as dangerous, but it's hard to argue with the facts.

Nat, however, chooses to offer her a slightly different perspective on the matter.

"We're all dangerous. We can do things that ordinary people can't, you even more so than me. That's something we have to live with." She explains, "It's our job to find the difference between being dangerous and being a threat."

She understands what Nat's trying to say, but it doesn't shake the cynical thought from her mind. Even if she's not necessarily a threat in Nat's eyes, she can't stop thinking about what she considered.

"I...I thought about killing him, Nat." She admits, ashamed, "Like really considered it for a moment."

"So have I. Multiple times." Nat quips back, shrugging as if it's nothing, and Harper gives her an incredulous look, but she only shrugs again, "I almost went for him when I stepped into that room."

That interests Harper. Not the part about Nat wanting to kill him, but the fact that she left the room without at least harming him somewhat.

"Why didn't you?" She asks.

"Because going after you was more important to me."

She doesn't know what else to say, so she just hugs Nat tightly, and Nat just hugs her back, murmuring reassurances like she always does.

"You're gonna be okay, Harper. You're gonna be okay."

She wanted to have the conversation to get some form of closure, but now that's had it, she's not sure if she's gotten what she wanted.


	13. 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potentially my favorite chapter so far. Enjoy guys :)!

**October 27th, 2015**

She stumbles out into the kitchen, head spinning and heart racing, and she practically collapses by the sink with a low groan.

She feels nauseous, which is something she hadn't thought to be possible for her given her abilities, and though nothing comes of that awful feeling, she remains by the sink edge, and her hands are gripping at the sides so tightly that her knuckles are turning white.

She doesn't close her eyes, because if she does she knows she'll just see it all again.

They're getting worse. Her brain has far more to work with now, so she shouldn't be surprised, but she doubts that it's something she'll ever manage to get used to.

She could go and find Nat, but that'll make it the sixth night in a row, and she feels awful when she sees the woman's sluggish movements the next day as a result of her keeping her up for part of the night. It's not fair for her to keep doing that.

She could go to Steve, but she's been keeping up one member of the team as it is. She doesn't want to do the same to someone else if she can help it.

"Harper."

She jumps up from the sink with a sudden burst of energy, the light in her hands flaring to life as she raises her fists defensively, and she's a split second away from firing off a powerful blast of light when she realises who the new figure among the dark room is.

The glowing gem in his forehead kinda gives it away.

Sighing in relief, she lowers her guard, the glow in her hand fading as she moves from the sink to the counter in the middle of the kitchen, running her hands through her long, matted hair as he hovers to her side hesitantly.

"I'm...I'm sorry, Vis." She murmurs, struggling to articulate her words because she's still slightly panicked, and not just because of his sudden arrival, "I didn't...I don't want..."

"You seem distressed." He observes, and then he's motioning to the door with a slight nod, "Shall I get Miss Romanoff? Or Captain Rogers?"

She understands that he means well, but she really doesn't want to drag Nat or Steve into this one. She's been doing that far too much lately.

"No. Don't get them." She replies instantly, voice frantic as she shakes her head profusely, "Please don't, Vision."

A person may pry and ask her what's wrong, but the logical part of Vision decides against doing that. Harper's thankful for it this time around, because she's not exactly in the right mind to explain herself.

"As you wish, Harper." He replies, nodding respectfully, and part of her expects him to just leave, because although Vision is highly intelligent, being an android presents the challenge of him being less adept at reading the emotions of others.

That's not to say that he can't, but more often than not he won't notice such things. She doesn't know if this is one of those such times or not, but he ultimately stays, asking another question tentatively after a few moments of silence.

"May I, and inform me if I'm stepping out of line, ask why? Only, I've come to notice that you usually go to either of them when you're distressed."

She's surprised that Vision's noticed that fact, because part of her assumed that he had more important things on his mind.

"I can't keep waking Nat up because of these stupid nightmares. It's not fair on her." She admits truthfully.

"I'm sure if Miss Romanoff had a problem with it, she'd let you know." Vision remarks, and then he presents her with an offer that she certainly wasn't expecting, "I may not be of as much help, but you're welcome to talk to me if you'd prefer."

She's not exactly close with Vision. Sure, they're teammates and all, but she'd say that out of the team she's the least close to the android. She doesn't understand why that is, because she reckons that he's probably the most fascinating one out of the team, but she supposes it's because she never got the chance to really bond with him before everything fell apart, and everything's been so chaotic since it all ended, so she hasn't exactly had much chance to fix that.

Still, the fact that he's even offering her that support makes her feel just that little bit better despite everything that's happened, and she even forces a small smile onto her face as she looks at him gratefully, "Thanks, Vision, but I'd rather not talk about it, if that's okay."

He nods respectfully, "Of course."

"Do me a favor and don't tell Nat about this, okay?" Harper asks after a moment of silence, tone sheepish, "I don't want her knowing."

If Nat knows, then she's just gonna ask a bunch of questions that Harper's gonna struggle to answer. She can open up the most to Nat, but there are times when she just doesn't want to talk. Besides, she doesn't want to worry her, or Steve, or anyone else, so keeping it between her and Vision should prevent that from happening.

That's the goal, at least.

"As you wish, Harper." He replies, and then he's gesturing to the door again, "Would you like me to leave you to your thoughts?"

That's something you have to appreciate about Vision: his respectful nature. Just like how J.A.R.V.I.S was before him, Vision always makes sure that he comes across as polite, and though he's not the best when it comes to reading emotions, he's surprisingly good at reading cues for an android.

"I'd rather you didn't." She says honestly, because if she's left alone she'll either just become paranoid again or start thinking about those terrible thoughts that continue to plague her mind all over again. So, she hesitantly asks, "Do you think we could talk about something less depressing instead?"

Part of her expects Vision to leave, because after all they're not exactly the closest, but when he doesn't, instead taking a seat at the counter where she's sat and looking to her with a simple conversation to get the conversation going, "What would you like to talk about?"

She appreciates his effort more than he'll ever know.

* * *

It's just gone 6pm, and Harper's on her way to the kitchen. She's just wrapped up a training session with Steve and Sam, something that she admittedly struggled with given her lack of sleep, but thankfully Sam was training in his suit, which gave her the perfect excuse to do the same.

It's far easier to hide the fatigue on your face beneath a mask.

She's about to walk into the kitchen, eager to grab some food after her long and exhausting training session, when she hears Nat's voice and stops at the door.

She's sound confused and concerned, which Harper knows from experience can't be good.

"What's going on, Vision?"

She may have been gone for two months, but before that she doesn't think she's seen Nat and Vision having a conversation between just the two of them. In a group setting? Yes. But not alone.

It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. Harper figures out why they're talking before Vision even replies.

"I don't mean to alarm you, Miss Romanoff, but I found Harper in the kitchen area in the early hours of the morning, and she was rather distressed." Vision tells her, and though Harper was expecting it, it doesn't prevent her from being frustrated.

In hindsight, she should've seen it coming from a mile off (which, since Ivan's experiments, she could actually accomplish). Vision's an android, and his decisions are gonna be based on what he views as most logical.

He's only acting on what he's programmed to do, realistically.

"She asked me to keep it a secret from you, but I understand that we are to notify you or Captain Rogers if we see something of concern with Harper."

The Vision part? Admittedly frustrating, but predictable. This, however, she didn't see coming, and whilst she should be glad that everyone's looking out for her, she can only find herself becoming all the more frustrated.

They're all monitoring her?

She should appreciate the concern, but some part of her is beyond pissed about it. What do they think is gonna happen? Why should they have to report to Steve or Nat if they find something that any of them deem concerning?

"Did she tell you anything else?" Nat asks, though Harper's not really paying much attention anymore because of how pissed off she is.

"She wished to not talk about it, but I've concluded that it must've had something to do with her nightmares." Vision replies, "She said she didn't want to wake you."

She stops for a moment, and as she considers it she realises how long this little monitoring thing of their's must've been going on for. At least for as long as she's been back, she suspects, and know that she's thinking about it, a lot of what they've done since then is starting to make a lot more sense.

Of course, she was always close with the team, but since being brought back they've gone into overdrive.

Rhodey doesn't tell her to go away when he has work to do anymore. He doesn't talk at her, and whenever she tries to change the subject he just brings it back so she's the one talking. It's like he's waiting for her to say something.

Wanda watches her more often. Before, when the two of them were in each other's company, they were perfectly content with looking at screens instead of at one another, but since coming back she's caught Wanda looking over at her multiple times for seemingly no reason, and then shying away when she notices her doing it.

Vision's been talking to her more than he did before. She picked up on that last night.

Sam hasn't really changed, neither has Nat or Steve...well, at least she thought.

She just thought it was because they missed her and were glad to have her back.

It makes her mad. So mad that the light's flaring in her hands and she can feel it building in her chest and rising like a torrential wave.

She doesn't want to stay here for multiple reasons. She's not exactly in the right frame of mind to talk to anyone at the moment, and she's scared that if she does she might do something that she'll regret.

She doesn't know what else to do. So, she teleports.

She ends up in New York.

She was aiming for Manhattan, but given her scrambled thoughts and fatigue she's a bit off on that, and she ends up in Queens instead.

Considering that she technically lives in the state of New York, she hasn't spent as much time as she could've and should've within the city. She's explored Manhattan a bit, and she's aware of the different areas that the city's split up into (that's how she knows she's in Queens), but she hasn't spent as much time within the city as she would've liked to.

She probably looks a mess. Clad in training gear, the control panel for her suit sticking out like a sore thumb against her pale wrist, and a certain frantic look in her eyes that naturally comes with being in a new place.

She sets off at a regular pace, passing by the hoards of people that are passing along the sidewalk. Quite a few of them stop to look at her, many viewing her with recognition, but she keeps walking despite not having a set destination.

Even if she doesn't know where she's headed, and even though she's only here because she didn't want to remain in the facility, it's nice to be somewhere new. It's relaxing, in a way.

Some of the light is already diminishing from her hands, which is a plus.

There's lots of alleyways in New York. That's something that she's noticed in the small amount of time that she's spent in the city. Sometimes they're empty, a lot of the time they're full of piled up trash disposals, and sometimes you find some unsavoury characters within them.

They're the kind of people that Harper's supposed to stop. The kind that most people just walk by and leave to their crimes, some out of ignorance and most out of fear.

She ends up in a quieter area of Queens relatively soon, and it's there that she finds multiple of those unsavoury characters, who just so happen to be pestering someone they shouldn't be.

"I-I gave you all I have! I-I...I don't have anything else! I swear!"

It's a boy. He's scrawny, about 5'7', and he's alone and looks beyond terrified.

She doesn't blame him. There's four guys stood around him, and they're all far taller and more muscular than he is, and they look a lot meaner. Not to mention, they're armed with sharp-bladed knives.

The situation would even frighten her.

Still, when she sees one of the guy's push the boy to the floor, eliciting a hiss of pain from him, she can't stand idly by any longer.

She taps her suit on, because something tells her that she might need the small amount of protection that it provides (she's been meaning to upgrade it to have a metal coating for a while now), and begins to make her way down the alley, mustering up the courage to catch their attention.

It's funny really. Fighting killer robots in a floating city was frightening, but this is a whole other ballpark.

"Hey!" She shouts, voice surprisingly confident, "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?!"

The four men turn away from the boy to face her, knives raised in their hands, and they stare at her confusedly for a moment as she comes to a stop in front of them.

"What are you supposed to be?" One of them asks, a smirk plastered on his grubby face, and she doesn't miss the similar expressions that are crossing the other men's faces.

The boy, still at their feet, just seems stunned.

She's scared, because healing or not she could still die from a couple of stab wounds to certain organs and arteries, but she somehow finds the courage to make her next comment.

"The person who's gonna kick your sorry asses if you don't back off right now!"

In her mind, she'd like to think that she sounds slightly intimidating. In an ideal world, her words alone would be enough to get them to leave, but that seems to not be the case this time around.

Instead, the men simply look around at each other, smirks still plastered across their faces, before the bulkiest of the group steps forward, knife raised out towards her.

"You're messing with the wrong people, kid." He warns, and Harper can tell that he's a moment away from lunging towards her.

"I think it's the other way around."

The next few moments pass by in a blur. She's punching instead of blasting, because if she were to do the latter she'd probably end up killing them, and though they're assholes, she doesn't really want that on her conscience.

She's got the clear advantage, what with her super strength and all, so it's not long before three of the four men are scampering out of the alleyway like frightened and wounded animals, leaving the leader of their small gang cowering at Harper's feet.

She glances over at the boy, who still just seems to be stunned into silence, before looking back at the cowering man, speaking to him in a low murmur that sounds surprisingly intimidating.

"You go near him again, and I'm gonna kick you to Sokovia."

"Sokovia doesn't exist anymore!" He exclaims, confusion plastered across his features.

"Exactly. And neither will you." She replies, smirking beneath her mask, and then she's nodding her head towards the alley's exit and uttering a simple word sternly, "Go."

He scrambles to his feet, practically tripping over them as he rushes out of the alley, and he doesn't even bother picking up his knife that he drops on his way out. She watches him until he's out of sight, and then she's letting out a breath she had subconsciously been holding the entire time before walking over to the boy, looking down at him with concern through her mask.

"Are you okay?" She asks, extending a hand out to him to help him up, and he takes it after a few moments of hesitation.

"You're...you're the Beacon!" He stutters once he's up, right hand instantly coming up to cradle his left wrist, and the shock across his face is practically palpable, "Wh-what are you doing here?"

"Exploring."

It's all she comes with on the spot, so she just takes it and runs with it.

"In Queens?" He replies, clearly skeptical but trying not to show it.

"Yeah. I've never been before." She replies, shrugging, and then she's tapping her mask away to expose her face for the first time, "And call me Harper, okay?"

He seems surprised, though she's not sure why. It takes him a moment before he responds, stuttering out his own name in greeting too.

"Oh, I-I'm Peter. Peter Parker."

"It's nice to meet you, Peter." She replies honestly, and she nods down to his wrist that he's cradling with a slight frown, "What happened to your wrist?"

"Huh? Oh, it's nothing." He says modestly, and it's clear that he's trying to hide it from her as he shrugs in an attempted nonchalant way, "Probably just sprained."

"Did those guys do that to you?" She asks, though it's basically rhetorical because she already knows the answer. It's kinda obvious, after all.

Still, besides stating the obvious, there is something helpful she can do.

"Let me see it."

It's a simple request, though it's one that Peter seems surprised by. He hesitates for a moment (he seems to do that quite a bit) before removing his hand and extending his wounded wrist out to her. She puts one of her hands over his wrist, drawing back when she feels the pain ebb into her own, wincing slightly when she first feels it.

"Better?" She asks, relieved when she feels the pain go.

It's easier for her to handle anyway. She might as well save him the pain if she can.

"A lot, yeah." He replies, flexing his wrist slightly in amazement, and then he's looking at her gratefully, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it." She replies honestly, because she's just glad that she's helped him, and then she hears her stomach grumble and the next thing comes to her mind.

"You know anywhere that's good to eat around here? All that fighting works up an appetite, you know?" She asks.

After all, she was going to get food before she teleported out of the facility. That had to be at least half an hour ago, and fighting really does work up an appetite.

"Uh, yeah, sure." Peter replies, "Keep heading north from here and you'll find Delmar's. He sells some of the best sandwiches in Queens."

She nods, thanking him for the suggestion, and then she begins to make her way out of the alleyway. A sandwich sounds really good right about now. She expects Peter to follow her, and when he doesn't she turns back to him confusedly.

"Aren't you coming?" She asks, and the look of surprise and excitement that crosses his face is something else.

He rushes to follow her after that.

* * *

"I live with my aunt." Peter explains as they step inside of his apartment, deli sandwiches in hand, "She's working tonight, so she shouldn't be back for a while."

She likes his (well, technically his aunt's) apartment. It's not cramped, nor is it so spacious that it feels empty. It seems to strike a nice balance. The two of them move into the kitchen, taking a seat at the table to enjoy their sandwiches.

"I wish I had an aunt." Harper replies as she pulls her food out of it's bag.

She always wanted an aunt. Or an uncle. Or cousins. Or just a family bigger than what she had. She knows that she had grandparents, but she never met them, and perhaps that's for the best considering that she now knows what her parents were really like.

"What about your parents?" He asks, and then realisation seems to dawn on his face and he goes into a frenzy, "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean-!"

She figures he must've watched the press conference. God, that feels like it was a thousand years ago.

"It's okay, Peter." She replies reassuringly, because it honestly is, "Besides, I wouldn't be sorry. Turns out my parents were assholes."

"W-what?" He stutters, clearly stunned by her blunt and unexpected statement.

In his defense, she'd be surprised if someone else had made such a statement about their deceased parents.

"I've come to realise that didn't really know my parents or most of the stuff that they did." She replies after swallowing a mouthful of her sandwich, "I'm not gonna bore you with the details, but it turns out they were quite manipulative and selfish people."

That's how she's viewing them now. At first, she didn't really want to accept everything that Ivan had told her, but after seeing the overwhelming amount of evidence, she'd only be lying to herself if she kept telling herself something otherwise.

The topic of conversation sets quite an awkward tone for a sort while, and Harper's afraid that she may have scared Peter off slightly. Part of her was hoping that they could be friends, but she reckons she's ruined the chances of that happening now.

That is until Peter speaks up again.

"Can I ask you something?" He asks, voice somewhat tentative, and she nods in confirmation, much to his surprise, "What's it like to...you know?"

His voice trails off, though she guesses what he's trying to get at.

"Have superpowers?"

He nods, "Yeah. That."

"It has its pros and its cons, I guess." She replies, shrugging, "You have those moments where you feel special because you can do what others can't, but then you have those moments where you realise what that means. The responsibilities that come with the powers."

That's something she feels a lot of people don't realise comes with having superpowers. Sure, it's cool that you can do things that most people can't, but that also makes you liable for far more than you realise. You need to use your powers for the right reasons, and sometimes by doing that you cause more problems than you mean to. Sometimes you make enemies that you didn't even know you had.

Harper knows too much about that.

"Being an Avenger." Peter murmurs, and there's a certain awestruck gleam in his eyes that Harper recognises far too well. She still gets it herself every now and then.

She nods, "We try and save as many people as we can. It's our job, and it's a job I'm proud to have, but sometimes it's not all it's cut out to be."

Peter seems to consider what she's saying for a moment, but he doesn't press the matter any further, which is something that she appreciates.

A moment passes before he speaks again.

"Can I ask you another question?"

She nods, "Sure."

"What are they like? The Avengers? Well, the other Avengers."

It's a simple question, and a warranted one at that, because she's still fascinated by the team and she lives with them. Ordinarily, it'd be a question that she'd answer without a hitch, but given the circumstances, she falters, something that Peter picks up on in an instant.

"D-did I do something wrong?" He asks in a panicked tone, and she's quick to reassure him.

"No, it's okay. It's just...I'm actually kinda angry at them at the minute. That's why I came here." She explains, "I lied when I said I was exploring. I just wanted to get out of the facility for a while. Distance myself so I didn't do something I'd regret later on, you know?"

It's stupid, when she reflects on it, but at the time she was so angry that she just ran with it. She really needs to work on her impulse control.

"Oh." He murmurs, "I-I'm sorry for asking about them."

She reassures him that it's fine, because he couldn't have known and he wasn't asking for any malicious reason. He was just curious, and it's not like she can blame him for that. She's just like him in that sense, after all.

"Something happened, something bad, and it's changed the way they treat me." She explains, "I overreacted, really...but I was just angry, and when you can teleport it's kinda easy to remove yourself from those situations."

Peter seems taken aback and curious about her explanation, but he once again chooses not to question it further. Harper's grateful again.

"Can I ask you something? Since we're asking questions." She asks, and Peter nods, "Why were you down in that alley in the first place?"

It's been something that she's been thinking about since they set off to Delmar's, though she hasn't really had the chance to ask him about it yet. The alley she found him in is a fair distance away from his apartment, and it's not like he could be using it to take a detour because it just leads to a dead end. The thugs could've chased him into it, but some part of her believes that to not be the case.

"I was I-." He stutters, face flushing red, and he sighs, "You're gonna think I'm weird."

She doesn't understand why he's getting so flustered. She's not exactly a symbol for all things normal, anyway, "I'm friends with a Demigod from outer space. Nothing is weird to me anymore."

That's true. She doesn't think she'll ever come across anything that she finds weird ever again, and that's saying something.

Sighing, he admits, "I was looking for tech."

"For tech?" She murmurs, initially confused as to why he'd be embarrassed about that, and then it dawns on her, "Wait, you were dumpster diving?"

"I wasn't-."

"I'm not judging you for it, Peter." She replies quickly, because she can see how embarrassed and awkward he's becoming, "People tend to throw away some of their coolest stuff."

She's never dumpster dived herself - it's not like she'd need to for tech considering the fact that she knows Tony Stark, after all - but she doesn't frown on people who do. It's surprising how much cool stuff people throw away just because they don't see the value in it.

"Exactly! That's what I keep telling Ned!" Peter exclaims, "I'm glad that someone else is on the same page as me!"

She chuckles at his excitement before asking her next question, "That's your thing? Technology?"

Peter nods, and Harper smirks, because she knows just the thing to show him. Reaching into her pocket, she switches on her phone and places it on the table in front of him, and his face lights up when the holographic screen appears before him.

"Whoa! Where'd you get this?" He gasps, jumping back slightly in surprise before examining the device excitedly.

It's an impressive piece of tech, that's for sure, and it's one that she's proud to show off.

"Mr Stark designed it for me." She explains as Peter continues to examine the device, "It's one of a kind."

"This is the coolest thing I've ever seen!" Peter gasps, and then he begins playing around with the interface.

She can't help but be amused at the way his face lights up even when he goes on the simplest of apps on the device: the contact list.

He scrolls through it, eyes still wide in awe, and he pauses on specific contacts as he goes through the list.

"Captain America has a phone?" He asks, surprised to see 'Steve Rogers' on the list.

She did have him labelled as 'Grandpa Rogers', but Steve had her change it when he found out. It was Sam's idea, actually, so she can't take full credit for it.

"Yeah, but it's super old." She replies, shrugging, and then an idea pops into her head, and she suggests it tentatively, "You can put your number in if you want? That's what friends do, right?"

Peter looks away from the phone for the first time since laying his eyes on it, clearly surprised by her suggestion, "We're friends?"

"Sure we are. It'd be nice to have a friend that's my age." She says honestly, "I mean, only if you want to be friends, that is."

She almost braces herself for him to say no, but then he's reaching back up towards the holographic screen and typing his number into the contact list, "Are you kidding me? Who wouldn't want to be friends with an Avenger?"

She appreciates the sentiment, but she could easily provide him with a long list of people that would definitely not want to be her friend. She chooses to keep that to herself as he finishes typing in his number, simply saving it under 'Peter', and before either can speak again they hear a knock at the door.

It's loud, more like a thump than a knock, and Harper instantly raises her guard, the light in her hands glowing ever so slightly as she jolts out of her seat. She swipes her phone off of the table, shoving it into her pocket as she turns directly towards the door, and Peter doesn't seem to miss her uneasiness.

"It's alright." He tells her, standing up from his own chair and coming to stand at her side, "That's probably just my friend Ned. I'll get it."

He makes a move for the door and Harper instantly throws her arm out in front of him, hands still glowing, and it startles him. Ordinarily she'd apologise for that, but right now she's far too focused on who could be behind that door.

She's not scared, but since coming back she's been more apprehensive than she'd like to admit. She's jumpier than before, even at the facility, and now that she's here - though she trusts Peter despite hardly knowing him - that's coming on tenfold.

"Let me get it." She murmurs, silently joining her hands together and drawing them back out again to form a large staff of light, because she may need to use it depending on who's behind the door, and she hears Peter gasp in awe beside her.

He doesn't say anything, though she can tell that he's struggling not to.

She approaches the door with quiet steps, which is easier said then done due to the creaky floorboards of the apartment, and once she reaches it she glances back at Peter as her hand closes over the door handle.

He doesn't look scared, and that's something she has to admire.

Turning back to the door with her guard raised, she rips it open, instinctively aiming her weapon out past the threshold of the door.

The person at the door isn't a threat - far from it, in fact- and they jump back in surprise once the door swings open, calling a ceasefire frantically.

She listens, and once the light dies in her hands she stops to look at the person directly, their name slipping out in a stunned murmur.

"Happy?"


	14. 14

**October 27th, 2015**

"How'd you find me?"

She's been in the car for quite a while when she finally speaks up, though she keeps her sights set on the trees that they're passing by outside of the window. She hasn't looked at him properly since getting in the car.

Happy had told her that he was there to take her home, and she begrudgingly followed him after saying goodbye to Peter who, bless his heart, looked beyond confused and concerned. He didn't really know what to do with himself. She told him to call her in a couple days when she was sure that Happy wasn't listening.

"Did you seriously think Tony would give you a suit with an A.I software called 'always monitoring you' and not stick a tracker in your suit?" Happy quips back, and she can't tell if he's annoyed from his tone and she's not about to look at him to find out if he is, "We tried to use it the first time we lost you, but by that point they had already destroyed your suit."

She was going to ask why they didn't use it to track her down in the first place anyway.

The comment draws her back to why she was frustrated in the first place, and though she's seen reason since then, some of those feelings creep back in when she hears him bring it up.

"This is exactly what made me angry in the first place." She replies frustratedly, and her voice begins to raise without her even realising it, "Why do you all feel the need to monitor me like some kind of lab experiment? I had enough of that when I was stuck there!"

Part of her expects Happy to just back down when she yells, because on the surface he comes across as somewhat docile. He's, in fact, far from it, and he doesn't back down when she raises her voice, instead quipping back instead.

He scoffs, "Do you think this is fun for me, kid? Do you think I want to be driving you back home this late at night?"

She should've expected him to say that, but then it makes her curious about something.

Turning to him for the first time since getting in the car, she asks, "So why are you doing it?"

It's a simple question but it's one that's been puzzling her since she first saw Happy at the door. She had expected someone to come find her and drag her home, but that person being Happy has surprised her. She would've expected Nat or Steve, maybe even Sam with Wanda or Rhodey tagging along, but not Happy.

"I was the closest. And if I were you, I'd be glad that it's me getting you instead of Natasha or Cap." Happy replies, eyes fixed on the road in front of him, "I don't get paid to keep tabs on reckless teenagers."

"Reckless?"

"You don't think running off to New York on your own is reckless?"

She shrugs, "Not when you can teleport and fly."

She hadn't expected this part of the conversation to develop into an argument, so when it does she's caught off guard. Happy, though clearly frustrated, has remain calm so far, but he actually ends up raising his voice at her.

"That's not an excuse!" He shouts, and the speed of the car raises ever so slightly as his tone does, "Do you even understand what you've done? How much you've made everyone worry?"

"They had nothing to worry about, Happy! I'm fine!" She shouts back defiantly.

If she had run off and gotten herself injured, then fair enough. She'd understand his perspective then. But he knows that she's completely fine, and it's not like can't defend herself, so she doesn't understand it.

"They didn't know that." Happy tells her sternly, and she thinks that his low toned voice is more frightening than his shouting one, "We all thought someone had taken you again."

That begins to carve at the guilty pit in her stomach, only making it deeper than even she thought was possible.

"But those people are gone." She murmurs confusedly.

Ivan's gone. They got rid of him. Those people aren't after her anymore.

"That's what I said to Natasha and she almost snapped my neck." Happy tells her, almost sounding scared, and she doesn't miss the way he flinches slightly fearfully at the thought, "And she could if she wanted to."

She knows that's true. Nat's kicked her ass multiple times during training sessions.

"She's probably gonna snap mine when I get back."

"Lucky for you, I think you're the only person she'd refuse to hurt."

She could give multiple examples from training sessions to disprove his statement, but she understands what he's trying to say so she keeps her mouth shut on the matter.

She waits a moment before speaking again, moving the topic of conversation onto something slightly different instead, "Are the others pissed off?"

"Would you be if they had done the same to you?" Happy asks her, and she doesn't exactly have much to say on that.

She knows she would be annoyed if one of them just disappeared out of nowhere without an explanation.

"Why did you even run off? To meet a boy?"

She's surprised that he hadn't asked about Peter before. He didn't question him as they were leaving his apartment, nor did he say anything as the two of them were getting into the car.

She knew it was inevitable for him to bring it up, though. She'd be surprised if he hadn't.

"What? No!" She replies adamantly, "I only met Peter today."

He quirks an eyebrow, "So that's his name?"

"It's not like that, Happy." She replies, groaning frustratedly, "I only met him today."

He somehow seems both amused and annoyed at the same time. She's only feeling the latter. She doesn't see Peter in that way at all, so the fact that he's suggesting it is only freaking her out.

"So why'd you leave?"

The first thing that she wants to say is that she shouldn't have left. Looking back on it, her reasoning was clearly flawed. Sighing, she admits, "Because I found out that Nat and Steve have had everyone report to them if they see something they deem concerning."

"Can you blame them when you do stuff like this?" Happy asks, tone stern, and she sees the point in what he's saying.

"Not really." She replies, and then she's pausing for a moment before speaking again with more sincerity, "It's just...I spent two months locked up in that place, and the entire time I was monitored. And I know it's not the same thing, far from it, but..."

Her voice trails off, and Happy surprisingly doesn't push her for an answer. He waits, keeping his sights set on the road as he waits for her to continue.

"Things have changed, and I thought that at least the team hadn't. So learning that they had...it just made me angry." She explains, "I've been trying to cling onto how things were, but its just been hard. Every time I get used to how something is, something comes along and ruins it."

She doesn't realise that she's started crying until the first tear rolls down the side of her face, and she instantly turns back towards the window to hide it from Happy. She has a feeling that he notices, but he doesn't pull her up on it, instead saying something else that she wasn't expecting.

"You're not normal."

She kinda already knows that, but it catches her off guard. She blinks back tears, turning to him confusedly, "What?"

"You're not normal." He repeats, "You're not normal and you're never going to be."

She deadpans him, "I really hope there's a point to this."

She really does. If Happy's gonna call her out like this, he best have a reason for it.

"You can't expect to have a normal life when you can do the things that you can." He tells her simply yet thoughtfully, "Superpowers or not, life isn't easy. Things come along that mess it all up, and most of the time there's not much we can do about it. I'm not gonna act like I understand what you've been through, Harper, because I never could, but I understand how it feels when things suddenly change."

"What can we do about it?" She asks, tone almost pleading, because she can see that Happy understands and she's really hoping that he has a solution for her.

"Not much." He replies, "But you're luckier than a lot of people, because there's a long line of people who care about you and would do anything for you."

That one hits her, because it's then that she truly realises how stupid she's been.

"And I hurt them because I was angry at them for caring." She murmurs, true realisation dawning on her, and she instantly feels an overwhelming sense of guilt and self-loathing, "I'm so stupid."

She would've thought that Happy wouldn't hear her considering how low toned her voice is, but he picks up on it nonetheless and instantly contradicts her.

"You're not stupid, kid." He says, and she can tell he's being sincere, which is something that she greatly appreciates "If you pull this kind of thing again, then we'll talk."

"Got it."

* * *

When she walks back inside the facility, she has to admit that she's not entirely surprised to see Steve, Tony and Nat all stood in the common area waiting for her. All three look incredibly frustrated, and Nat's even stood there with her arms crossed sternly, and the mere sight of all three of them stood there is enough to make Harper turn right back around, one single word going off in her head like a blaring siren.

Abort.

She's stopped by Happy when she walks right into him, and the portly man turns her back towards the adults waiting, walking her over to them with a sigh, "Nice try, kid."

They reach the three of them, and before Harper can even attempt to say anything, Tony beats her to the mark, which in hindsight is something she should've expected.

"You wanna tell us why you were with a boy in Queens?" He asks, and this seems to be new information to both Nat and Steve, and she doesn't miss the way the latter's eyes go wide in confusion and concern.

"A boy?" Steve questions, and if the situation weren't so tense, she'd crack the joke that he's giving off severe 'overprotective Dad' vibes.

Well, more like 'overprotective Grandad' vibes to be precise.

She groans, turning to Happy and pointing an accusatory finger at him, "I told you it's not like that!"

Happy just shrugs, looking unperturbed, which is the exact opposite of Steve, who still seems to be fixed on the fact that she was with a boy more than anything else.

"Who is this boy?"

"He's a friend." She tells him, turning back to the three adults as she desperately tries to dig herself out of the situation.

"A friend?"

"Yes, a friend!" She groans exasperatedly, "This is bullshit!"

"Language!" Steve warns, eyes wide, and it's funny because neither Nat or Tony seem bothered about her cursing.

She reckons they'd even be slightly amused if the situation wasn't what it is.

"Well it is!" She protests.

"I'm tired of this. I've had a long day." Tony says, sighing, and then he's extending his palm out to her laid flat and nodding towards her pocket, "Give me the phone."

She knows this is what usually happens when kids are grounded - it's even happened to her before - but it doesn't stop her from protesting his decision, "You can't be serious?"

He's definitely being serious. He doesn't react, simply keeping his palm extended out to her, and she knows that she'll be standing there until the next morning if she doesn't just hand it over, and it's already late as it is so she doesn't really want that.

She reluctantly hands over the phone, which he takes and slips into his suit pocket. Something tells Harper that she's not going to be seeing it for a while.

"Now you can't stay up all night texting your little friend. I'll send it back to you when you start acting more responsibly." He tells her, and she literally has to physically bite her tongue to prevent herself from retorting. She knows that it's not gonna get her anywhere right now.

He leaves with Happy then but not before saying goodbye to both Steve and Nat. He also remembers to remind her how stupid she's been as he passes her, though there's no malice to his words. More so frustration and just general Tony Stark teasing. She's dealt with the latter far more than anyone should have to.

"Are you gonna tell us why you ran off?" Steve asks her once Tony and Happy are both gone, voice stern.

She looks at Nat, and she's admittedly surprised that she hasn't said a word, and she tells it to her straight. "I heard you and Vision talking. I know that you guys have had the others reporting back to you. I don't know why I got mad about it, because now I've realised that I had no reason to."

She still doesn't say anything, just continue to stare at her with the exact same frustrated expression she's held the entire time.

"You can't just do stuff like that when you're mad, Harper." Steve tells her, sounding both surprised and disappointed, "You're smart enough to know that."

"I'm sorry, okay?" She replies, pausing for a moment to consider how best to articulate her perspective, because she honestly doesn't know how to fully phrase it, and it takes her a while before she gives them an answer.

Sighing, she tells them, "I just...I got really angry and I knew that if I didn't remove myself from the situation, something really bad could've happened. I really didn't mean to worry you guys. Honest."

Steve seems to listen to what she says, and though it doesn't force all of the frustration from his face, he seems to take what she says on board at least somewhat.

"You know that doesn't make what you did okay, don't you?" He asks her, and she nods in an instant, because she knows that what she did was wrong regardless of her reasoning.

He nods, turning to Nat expectantly, and their eyes meet in a silent exchange that Harper can't quite decipher. Steve leaves after a moment, pausing as he passes Harper and placing a hand on her shoulder.

"You're not going to do something like this again, are you?"

She shakes her head, "Definitely not."

He doesn't seem convinced, but he doesn't say anything about it, just giving her shoulder a quick squeeze before heading out of the room.

With him gone, it leaves her with just Nat, who finally speaks up for the first time once Steve's out of the room.

"Why didn't you just talk to me?" She asks her simply, and Harper's surprised, because Nat sounds neither calm nor frustrated.

She was expecting anger, but that's not what she's seeing. It's kinda scaring her.

"I can't just keep putting all of my problems on you, Nat."

"It's not a problem to me." Nat replies instantly, still unwavering in her tone and expression, "The problem is when you don't talk to me because stuff like this happens."

Harper shrugs, "I'm fine, though."

That's the comment that sets Nat off. That's the one that brings the anger out, and she notices it the instant she sees Nat tense up like she always does when she's mad.

"I didn't know that! I must've called you at least thirty times, and every time you didn't answer I kept wondering about where you were and if anything had happened to you!"

Harper almost flinches at the harshness of her voice. She doesn't think she's ever seen Nat so pissed off before, and that's saying something. She's practically stumbling over her words when she attempts to respond.

"I-I didn't see the calls. M-my phone was off." She stutters honestly, and then she tries to pull some reason into the conversation in the hope that it might quell the woman's anger at least somewhat, "Besides, I have superpowers. I can defend myself."

It doesn't work. It makes Nat even angrier.

"Superpowers don't make you invincible, and they didn't stop someone from hurting you last time!"

She does flinch this time, and Nat notices. She looks just as pissed, but she does lower her voice ever so slightly, though the rage within it is still clear as day.

"I was worried about you. We all were." Nat says, voice ten decibels softer, yet still remaining stern, and Harper feels the guilt in the pit of her stomach grow a painful amount.

"I get that, Nat, bu-."

"No, Harper. You don't get it." Nat interjects, the anger rearing its head again, "Because if you did, you wouldn't have run off like you did."

Harper doesn't really know how to come back from that one. She sees Nat's point in some respect and she also knows that arguing with Nat is only gonna lead to a shouting competition that she's almost certainly gonna end up losing.

"You're tired. Go to sleep."

She doesn't miss the way Nat's face softens, albeit just for a moment, as she takes in her exhausted face, but she knows that it doesn't change anything. If she tries to argue against her on this one, there's not a chance in hell that she's winning.

So, she listens, murmuring yet another apology before heading off to her room, because she doesn't know what she can or should do.

* * *

She wakes up screaming, because of course she does. It's probably a well deserved bit of karma for running off like she did. The images play on repeat in her mind as the screams tear their way out of her hoarse throat, and even when she feels a pair of arms wrap around her they don't stop.

"Harper, it's okay! You're okay!"

Nat's holding onto her, and it takes her a moment to come to terms with that. It takes her a second to accept that she's actually there, and when she does the relief that overcomes her is immeasurable.

"Nat?" She murmurs, looking at the woman in the dark with bleary and tired eyes, and even in the dark she can see the equal tiredness on the older woman's face.

Nat runs her hands through her hair softly just like she always does, and Harper leans her tired head against Nat's shoulder, and the two of them soon slip into their all too familiar routine.

Nat continues to murmur reassurances to her for a while, pausing briefly to say something to Steve, and she hears him reply from the door, but her ears are ringing and her head's spinning so even with her enhanced senses she struggles to hear what he says.

"It's just a dream. You're okay."

That's exactly what she keeps trying to tell herself, and it takes a while of Nat soothing her for her to calm down, but when she does she realises that it is just a dream and everything's okay.

She recoils from Nat for a moment, and the woman gives her some space like she always does, only speaking when she sees the tension leave her shoulders.

"You wanna talk about it?" Nat asks her simply, tone neither pressing nor yielding.

She talks to Nat about her nightmares a lot, though for the most part she does so the next morning or even later than that. It's not often that she discusses them right after they happen because that means she has to relive them in her mind far too soon, but this is one of those rare occasions where she actually wants to talk about it at least somewhat.

"You all left." She murmurs, eyes fixated on the ground, "I was alone."

She was running through the facility calling out for them all, but none of them were there. It wasn't long until the facility morphed into _that_ place, and she could hear _his_ voice like an eerie echo on repeat. It was chilling to the core.

"Scary, huh?"

She nods, "Terrifying."

It's mostly frightening because you don't know what's happening, and that causes you to make up the worst scenarios in your head. Well, it does at least for her, and her head seems to have no issues in doing just that. It's got a lot of screwed up stuff to work with, after all.

"I'm surprised you're here. I thought you'd still be angry with me." She remarks after a moment, and Nat's response is exactly what she was expecting.

"I am."

"I don't blame you."

She can't blame her. She can't blame any of them. She was stupid.

"I'm sorry. You were right, I don't get it." She admits, sighing exhaustedly as she tears her eyes away from the floor to look directly at Nat apologetically, "Sure, I missed you guys those two months I was gone, but I never stopped to think about how you guys must've felt."

She missed her family more than anything when she was trapped there, even when she'd wake up from a nightmare in which one or many of them would harm her. As soon as she realised that her nightmares weren't real and the crushing sense of fear vanished, it was soon replaced by an overwhelming sense of sadness. She lost count of how many times she feel asleep in tears at just the thought of the family she was missing.

She missed them all more than anything, but she never stopped to consider the fact that they also missed her. Yet another example of her just being beyond stupid.

"I used to have nothing, you know." Nat tells her after a moment, and Harper notices the way she looks at her. It's a conflicted expression, one of both pain and an unexplained sense of relief. "The thing is, I didn't know any different, so it wasn't like I could get sad over anything that I lost."

She doesn't understand why Nat's telling her this, mostly because Nat hardly ever talks about her past, and Harper never feels that it's her place to enquire further about it. It's never been her place too.

It's upsetting to hear about Nat's past, and it amazes her how she continues to remain so strong and composed despite everything that she's been through.

Nat's told her some surprising things in the past, but what she tells her next takes the top spot in an instant.

"And then I lost you." She says, and Harper swears she's never heard Nat sound so empty before, "We all did, and that's when I learnt what it's like to lose someone that's important to you, and it scared me more than anything that happened in the Red Room ever did."

She feels that familiar choking sensation rise up in her throat as she finds herself at a loss for words, and she can't think of what to say to Nat, because how is she supposed to respond to that?

"I'm sorry." She murmurs, because she honestly has no idea what else to say, and she's quick to respond once again when Nat gives her an all too familiar look, "I know you always tell me not to say that, but I am sorry."

"It's okay."

She wants to challenge that and remind Nat that it's not okay, that none of it's okay and she doesn't know if it's ever going to be okay again, but then there's a soft knock at the door and both of them are darting their heads towards the source of the sound.

Steve's there, and Harper watches through tired eyes as he awkwardly places a glass of water down on the desk by her door, gesturing to it with a small smile, "I thought you might want some water."

She feels bad, because he clearly doesn't know what to do or say, and she fully understands him because she's been there herself far too often. She's beyond grateful, however, and she feels like she takes the small acts of kindness that he (and everyone, really) shows her for granted.

She stands up then, crossing the room and wrapping her arms around his middle in a tight hug that seems to stun him at first, and she knows it's not because of her strength because she's being careful to try and restrain it at least somewhat.

It takes him a moment before he returns the hug, and she can tell that he's trying to hold back some of his own strength in the process, but she appreciates him reciprocating it.

"Thanks, Steve."

"Anytime, kid." He murmurs back, and she knows that he's telling the truth when he says that.

Her family always has her back.


	15. 15

**November 5th, 2015**

"What are you doing?"

She practically jumps up from the ground when Wanda's voice breaks the silence of the lab, and she can hear her own heart pounding as she turns to face Wanda, face stricken.

"Jeez, Wanda!" She gasps, "Some warning would be nice next time!"

Wanda seems unperturbed, remaining stood with her arms crossed just opposite her, and Harper notices the way she tries to look past her at the computer screens behind, "Why are you up here on your own? You've been hiding away for hours now."

Wanda's not wrong there, though in Harper's defense she lost track of time. That tends to be what happens when she becomes engrossed in something. She's actually conducting what she believes is important research, and it's research that she's wanted to perform for quite a while now but just hasn't really had the chance.

"Before I tell you, you have to promise me that you won't get mad." Harper tells her, then adding something else as an afterthought, "And that you won't tell Nat."

There's, technically speaking, nothing wrong with the research that she's conducting, but at the same time she knows how easily Nat (and most of the team, by extension) worries about her. Nat can come across as cold and pragmatic to some, but the woman shows an overwhelming level of concern and care for her that only a few people get to witness. The last thing that Harper wants is to worry her, or anyone for that matter, unnecessarily. She's done enough of that already.

"I'm not promising anything." Wanda replies, still unperturbed, and Harper groans frustratingly at her response.

"Wanda, come on!"

"Just tell me."

Sighing, Harper relents, because she knows that Wanda will find a way to get it out of her regardless. She turns back towards the computer and, using the totally awesome holographic technology that Mr Stark's developed, takes the schematic that she's been working on and blows it up in size. The blue hologram makes up most of the room, and Harper doesn't miss the way that Wanda's eyes light up in both curiosity and awe at the sight of it.

She often forgets about Wanda's upbringing and how all of this technology must be so foreign to her. It's not like she grew up working in large laboratories with holographic tech, but she was at least more exposed to it all than the former Sokovian.

"What is all of this?" Wanda asks, perplexed, and Harper's response only seems to confuse to her even more.

"Me." Harper tells her, and she quickly adds more when she notices the expression on the other girl's face, "I've been running some tests."

"What kind of tests?"

"Blood tests. Brain scans. The whole lot." She explains as she begins to pace around the room, looking at the data as she walks in and around the hologram, "I've been trying to understand what they did to me at that place a bit more."

"So that's why you didn't want me to tell Natasha."

Harper pauses, turning back to Wanda with a sigh, "Exactly. I know she'll freak, and she doesn't need that right now."

None of them need that, really. Being Avengers, none of them are unfamiliar to things that may cause unrest or unnecessary distress. It's what they signed up for in a sense. But Harper doesn't want any of them to worry anymore than they need to, and she knows that despite perhaps being the best at hiding it when she needs to, Nat's the one who worries about her the most. Both Steve and Tony are very close seconds, but neither quite matches how Nat gets.

Their overprotective natures are somewhat endearing, but it also can lead them to worrying too much. Harper doesn't want to cause that anymore than she already has.

"Have you found much?" Wanda asks, tone curious.

"Look for yourself." Harper replies, gesturing to all of the data being projected in front of them via hologram, and she stands to the side as Wanda begins to walk around the lab, unpicking all the information at her own pace.

It takes a moment before Wanda stops at a specific point, stopping nearby a brain scan that Harper actually recorded just this morning, which is alongside a scan of the average human brain for someone her age.

"Is that your brain?" She asks, Harper nodding in response, and then she gestures to the differences in the two brain scans, "What is all of this?"

"Sometimes PTSD can have an affect on the brain." Harper explains truthfully, because she knows that most of the differences in her brain are due to what she's experienced rather than anything she's capable of. Approaching Wanda, she continues, "Other than that, mine's actually not that different to most peoples. There's just a lot more activity."

That's something that surprised her when she first compared the two scans. Part of her had thought, given her enhanced intelligence, there'd be some noticeable differences in her brain compared to someone else's. Her brain is different, of course, but not as much as she thought it'd be.

The more you know.

"And what's this list for?" Wanda asks, gesturing to a long list of abilities at another part of the hologram.

"My capabilities."

Wanda seems stunned by not only her reply, but also by just how extensive it is. Harper herself hasn't even had the chance to sift through all of it just yet, and it takes Wanda a while to scroll through just part of it.

"You can do all of this?"

"I could." Harper replies, "They kept trying to add more to me, because for some reason they weren't satisfied with what I could already do. Super strength and enhanced senses worked, but enhanced speed was a total bust."

She knows that they tried to add even more than that, but she hasn't had the time to rifle through the files they collected to find out all of that. She doubts they even kept track of all it. They injected her with a lot of stuff.

"Based on my research, I could be capable of all of this if the correct experiments were performed. The thing is, I don't intend on performing such experiments."

"You don't?" Wanda asks, surprised.

"I don't need anything else that's gonna make me even more of a threat." Harper replies honestly, because the last thing she wants is to make herself more dangerous, and some of the abilities on that list would do just that, "Besides, I wasn't even trying to find this stuff out. It wasn't what I was looking for."

"What were you looking for?"

"A way to get those trigger words out of my head." Harper says, and she doesn't miss the way Wanda's face instantly pales, a nervous expression crossing her face. Sighing, she adds, "It's okay, Wanda. I've got nothing anyway."

She knows that Ivan's gone. So are the other people that would try and trigger her. But even then, the fact that they're still stuck in her mind makes her feel uneasy. If they were put there, there's got to be some way to get rid of them. She just hasn't figured that part out yet.

"You'll find something." Wanda says reassuringly, and Harper offers a small smile back.

"I hope so."

* * *

She walks into Steve's office at about 5pm because she was told by Vision to notify him that dinner had been prepared. Wanda's cooked up some food today, and Harper can still smell it from within the office thanks to her enhanced senses, and boy does it smell good. She can't wait to get back to the kitchen so she can have some for herself.

When she walks into the office, she finds Steve looking intently at his computer screen, so much so that he doesn't even acknowledge her arrival.

"Hey, Steve. Whatcha looking at?" She asks, coming to stand at his side by the computer, and when he nods towards the screen she takes a look for herself.

He's looking at an image of who she assumes is a man, clad in a dark combat suit and a slightly terrifying looking mask that obscures his entire face. It really isn't a good look, if she says so herself.

"Who is that?" She asks, curious, and Steve replies with a simple name.

"Brock Rumlow."

"Never heard of him." She muses, glancing over at Steve and attempting a lighthearted comment with a small smile,"Friend of yours?"

"Not exactly." Steve replies, tone sincere, and the smile instantly drops from her face, a more solemn expression rushing in to replace it.

Turning back to the screen, she focuses more intently on the image of the man, and it takes her a moment before recognition flashes in her eyes.

She's seen him before.

"Wait, I think I've seen him before." She tells Steve, and he turns to her in surprise as she looks back at him, "He's the guy who's been robbing police stations all over for a while now. I've seen him on the news."

"He's going by the alias of Crossbones." Steve replies.

"Crossbones?" Harper muses, almost humored by the name, and Steve gives her a certain look that reminds her that the situation's serious. She shrugs, adding, "It's creative. I'll give him that."

"The lead I've received suggests that he's recruiting soldiers." Steve explains, and it's then that Harper understands why he's looking into this guy.

Sure, robbing police stations isn't exactly a good thing, but they tend to deal with assailants with higher threat levels than that. She has a feeling that there's more to Steve's investigation than just what he's going on from his lead, but she feels that it's not her place to ask.

Besides, she could find out if she really wants to. Hacking the computer systems within the facility isn't that hard when you put your mind to it, at least for her.

"Recruiting soldiers? Why would he do that?" She asks him.

A moment passes before Steve responds, eyes steeled and focused on the single image on the screen in front of him.

"That's what I'd like to find out."

She understands the importance of this (at least to Steve) without anything even being said. He clearly wants to understand what this guy is up to, and whilst she can't pull off such a feat as quickly as anyone may like, she knows that she can help.

"May I?" She asks, gesturing to the computer, and Steve surprises her when he moves out of the way, giving her full access to the device.

It takes her a moment, but she soon becomes familiar with the interface of the computer, and from there it's child's play. Steve watches as she cross references data right before him, compiling information to give a breakdown on his recorded activity.

Harper notices that it's like a sequence, and though she can't fully decipher it, she can interpret it enough to see one thing for certain.

"He's definitely got a plan, that's for sure." She remarks, eyes scanning the screen intently.

"How do you know?" Steve asks.

"His moves aren't sporadic, they're strategic." She muses, glancing between him and the computer screen, "The problem is that it doesn't seem to be a strategy with any specific pattern, so I doubt we'll be able to track him down with just this information alone. From all of this though, it kinda looks like he's building..."

"An army."

She shrugs, "I was gonna say a task force, but that works too."

It's clear as day when looking at all the information side by side. Sure, it's all somewhat scattered, and it's somewhat difficult to see how it all links, but once you do it's difficult to un-see it. Still, the prospect of this man, who's clearly a threat, building up a small army of mercenaries is something that can't be ignored.

Something else that can't ignored? The low groaning sound that suddenly sounds from the pit of her stomach.

Steve turns towards her, surprised at the sound, and she smiles sheepishly, "Sorry. I was sent up here to get you for supper. I can smell it from here and it's kinda making me hungry."

Steve smiles too, chuckling lightly as he stands up from his chair, and he places a hand on her shoulder as he nods towards the door, "I'm kinda hungry too. What do you say we head downstairs and eat?"

She nods eagerly, following Steve out of the office and towards the kitchen, their search for Crossbones forgotten in that moment in aid of some delicious smelling food.

What? It smells great.


	16. 16

**November 23rd, 2015**

"You want me to do what?" Sam asks, somewhat stunned by her request as he finishes making his BLT at the kitchen counter. He begins to put away some of the spare food, still stunned, "Why do you want me to teach you how to fire a gun?"

She shrugs, saying, "I know you know how."

"I do, but why do you want to learn?" He asks, nodding to her hands, "Are you forgetting that those light beams of yours can do more damage than any kind of bullet can?"

She sees his point, because she knows that her Photokinetic powers surpass the power of any bullet, but she doesn't want to learn how to shoot a gun just because of the damage it can or can't cause. She's got another reason behind it.

"I know they can, but I can't just rely on my powers all the time. I've got to be able to fight back in other ways." She explains, because something she's come to realise is that she really can't rely on her powers all the time.

Ivan found a way to block off her powers, so what's to stop someone else from coming along and doing the same? And she may be trained in hand to hand combat, but that's not gonna get her very far against someone who's armed because they can harm her from a reasonable distance. She needs to be able to surpass or at least match her opponents, so she sees no harm in becoming more versatile and branching out into using weaponry to her advantage. It seems like a logical progression in her eyes.

"And is there any reason why you're asking me to help you out with this?" Sam asks, quirking an eyebrow.

"Because you're the best at it." She attempts, trying to win him over with a broad smile, and she knows that it hasn't worked when he simply deadpans her. Sighing, she admits the truth, "It's because I know Nat'll never teach me, and I don't think Steve would either."

She had considered going to Nat first, mostly because she knows for certain that she can fire a gun with precision. Besides hand to hand combat and her Black Widow gear, Nat's go to during a fight is a gun. She'd probably be the best to teach her, but Harper knows that that's not likely to happen.

Nat's no stranger to how harsh the world can be - none of them are, to be honest - and whether she likes to admit it or not, she attempts to shield Harper from it in any way she can. They all do to some extent, but Nat and even Steve more so than the others.

"You know why she won't." Sam tells her, breaking his usually playful demeanour to be serious for just a moment to get his point across.

She knows why she treats her the way she does. She knows why they all do it, and she appreciates the fact that they care more than they'll ever realise. At the same time, she doesn't need to be wrapped up in cotton wool all the time. She can handle herself.

"She doesn't need to protect me from the entire world."

"You gonna try and stop her?" Sam counters, almost challenging her with the suggestion, and she sighs and shakes her head, because she knows that she won't try it.

No one tries it with Nat. There's no winning there.

She's about to give up, because it seems that Sam's made up his mind on this one when he reaches for his BLT, but once he takes a bite out of it he adds something else that makes her stay, "I'll teach you on one condition."

Her face lights up, "Sure! Whatever you say!"

You don't tell her that I'm the one who taught you. I don't want her to shoot me." He tells her, pointing at her directly to emphasise his point, and she instantly rushes to reassure him.

"She wouldn't."

He quirks an eyebrow again, "You sure about that?"

She could say that she is, but she doesn't like to lie to Sam or anyone else she cares about, so she chooses instead to keep her mouth shut as she follows him up to the shooting range within the facility.

She's never actually been inside the room before. She's explored the facility a fair bit since moving in, but sometimes she still comes across a room that she's never seen before, and that both surprises and excites her every time it happens. This just so happens to be one of those times.

The room looks out onto the gorgeous view of the lake just outside of the facility, and like most of the other rooms in the facility it has a certain high tech and pristine look that only feels cool, not unwelcoming like it could. Sam crosses the room to where the guns are stored, grabbing two handguns and a single loaded cartridge for one of them. He walks back over to her as he loads the cartridge into one of them, keeping a firm grip on both guns.

"The trick is to always treat the gun as if it's loaded." He explains, tone cautious despite the fact that she's not even holding the loaded gun, but of course she understands why because they aren't playing around here, "We know you can take a bullet, but some of us can't, so you don't want to end up shooting one of us because you weren't being careful."

She nods, "Treat the gun like it's always loaded. Got it."

"I'm sure you know how loud these things are. You'll find that you'll get used to the sound after a while, but I know that you've got that enhanced hearing thing going on so it might be a bit harder for you to adjust."

She had expected that. She knows that gunshots can be loud, and though it's often a great benefit to her, this is one of those instances where having enhanced senses isn't going to help her case.

Thankfully, she knows how she can cope.

"I can tune into something else." She suggests, shrugging, "Focus on it instead of the gunshot."

"Like what?" Sam asks, tone curious, and he becomes even more curious once she responds.

"A heartbeat."

"You can do that?"

She nods, smirking at his surprise, "That's how I know when you've lied about eating the last of the Fruity Pebbles."

"Hey! That's not fair, kid!" He protests, sounding awfully similar to a misbehaving child trying to plead their innocence, something that's only emphasised when he points an accusatory finger at her, "You ate the last of the bagels last week!"

That is true. She did eat the last of the bagels, but she thought that nobody had noticed. She would've had something else to eat, but she was just really in the mood for a bagel.

Laughing, she quips, "Touche, Wilson."

Sam laughs good-naturedly back, and then he places the empty gun into his pocket before gripping onto the loaded gun tightly, demonstrating the correct form for holding the gun to Harper as he tells her a simple instruction, "Make sure you hold the gun correctly when you fire it."

She quirks an eyebrow, asking, "Why wouldn't I do that, Sam?"

Sam's instruction baffles her, because why would someone hold the gun incorrectly? She almost doesn't take what he's saying seriously at first, but then Sam follows up on his somewhat unorthodox order with more sincerity.

"You'd be surprised how many people do it wrong." He tells her, turning so he can fully show off the gun to her, "You're not gonna get much kickback from a small gun like this, but you might as well avoid it if you can."

He passes the loaded gun to her carefully, helping her adjust into the correct form, and once she's in it she turns to him whilst keeping her stance constant, "Anything else I should know?"

He shrugs, smiling playfully, "Make sure you hit the target instead of me."

She smiles back before turning towards the target, readying her stance again and focusing on where she wants the bullet to go. She keeps all of Sam's comments in mind as she fires all the bullets at the target, and she doesn't even realised that she's fired them all off because she's too focused on the sound of Sam's heartbeat.

Once she looks at the target properly, gun lowered safely, she's both surprised and frustrated by her observation, "Not even one of them was on target!"

She wasn't expected to hit all of her shots perfectly first time, but she was kinda hoping that at least one of them would hit.

"I'd be dead by now." She says vehemently, turning to Sam, "If someone came running at me with a knife and my powers weren't working I'd be dead by now. I'd be bleeding out on the floor."

"Why would someone stab you with a knife?" Sam asks, perplexed.

She shrugs, "Why wouldn't they?"

Sam looks at her with both confusion and amusement, and then he's sighing and turning back towards the target, nodding towards it, "Look, just try again and this time focus a bit more."

She nods, crossing the room to where the loaded cartridges and inserting one of them into the gun, recalling from memory just how Sam did it and doing the same. Walking back towards him, she turns and regains her firing stance before sending the bullets at the target once again, once again tuning into the sound of the heartbeat to block the noise.

She turns out to be slightly more successful than the first time, as one of the bullets lodges into the bottom corner of the left foot of the body target.

Groaning, she turns to Sam, "I still missed."

"One of the bullets hit." Sam tells her, shrugging, "That could make all the difference."

"Sure it could."

He quirks an eyebrow, smirking, "You don't believe me?"

"A bullet to the foot isn't going to do much in the moment."

Sure, it could slow a person down, but she really doubts that a bullet to the foot is gonna cause much damage.

"You're forgetting that most people can't take a bullet to the foot." He replies.

He's got a point there. Most people aren't like her.

"Go again."

She listens, and she fires shot after shot after shot for multiple rounds, Sam waiting with a new cartridge each time the previous one runs out. Some of her shots get closer to the middle of the target, whilst some of them only end up further away, but eventually she manages to hit each and every one of the shots in a specific round to hit their intended target, and she finds that she has to stare closely at it with her enhanced sight just to be certain.

When she confirms her suspicion, she turns to Sam excitedly, "Did you see that?"

"I saw it." Sam replies, smiling at her excitement, though the smile quickly fades when he notices the way she's holding the gun limply at her side, and he rushes to readjust it, tone scolding, "What did I say about the gun?"

"Always treat the gun like it's loaded." She murmurs, sounding like a child being told off, and Sam chuckles, reaching out to clap a hand on her shoulder.

"It's okay, kid."

She smiles at him, beyond grateful for his help.

Sometimes she feels like she takes Sam for granted. He's great, because he's neither too strict with her or too lenient; he also knows how to mess around and have fun like a kid, which she imagines isn't easily achievable for an adult.

She goes to thank him not only for his help today, but also his help in general, when she hears the sound of someone coughing from behind. Both her and Sam turn around to the source of the clear coughing, and Sam's the one who voices what's going off in both of their heads at the sight of who's stood there.

"Son of a bitch."

It's Nat. She's stood there, arms crossed at the door, and Harper can't tell if she's annoyed or amused. She's just stoic.

And though she should probably be serious right now, she can't help the next word that slips out of her mouth comically.

"Language."

They both burst into laughter despite their attempts not to, and though she clearly tries not to, neither of them miss the brief amused smirk that crosses Nat's face too. In Harper's eyes, the situation can't get more comedic.

And then Steve walks in, and it's enough to even set Nat off, all three of them bursting into laughter at the sight of the veteran.

Steve quirks an eyebrow, "What's going on?"

"Nothing, Steve." Harper says in between fits of giggles, "We're just watching our language."

Steve deadpans them, "You guys are still on that?"

"You know it, Cap."


	17. 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really like this chapter. Hope you guys do too :)

**December 12th, 2015**

"Nat..."

Harper strolls into the kitchen, singsong tone and all, and the look that Nat gives her is one of dread. Not serious dread, more like the playful kind that Sam often pretends to have.

"Oh, no." She murmurs, placing her glass of water down on the countertop and turning to face her, and Harper looks at her quizzically.

"What?" Harper asks, eyes filtering between Nat and Sam, the latter watching amusedly from the kitchen table.

"I don't like where this conversation is going."

Harper quirks an eyebrow, "I literally just said your name."

She's literally just come in here to ask her a simple question. Well, it's not so much a question as it is a request, but the details aren't important.

"It's the way you said it." Nat replies, playful smirk and all.

"Are you done being suspicious of me? I need to ask you something." Harper says, rolling her eyes good-naturedly, and she continues when Nat nods in confirmation, asking her question carefully, "Can I go to New York City for the day?"

The playful smirk doesn't fully disappear, only falters. Harper should've seen that coming.

"Why?"

Harper shrugs, "I want to see the sights."

Technically that's not the entire truth, but she's not completely lying. She would like to see the sights in New York City, but that's not exactly why she wants to go there today, and she knows that if she tells Nat the real reason, odds are she won't be allowed to go.

"The sights?"

Nat doesn't seem convinced.

"Yeah. I didn't really have much of a chance to explore the city when we were at the Tower, so I figured why not now?" Harper replies, once again only partially lying, and she presses on when she sees Nat's steeled expression falter for a fraction of a second. She could be getting somewhere here. "I promise I'll call every hour, and if I don't you can have Mr Stark send the Iron Legion out to find me if you really want."

Nat seems intrigued, glancing briefly at Sam, who surprisingly remains non-hyper verbal on the matter, and the next person who breaks the silence is neither of them.

It's Steve, who walks into the room with a question, "What about the Iron Legion?"

He must've heard their conversation as he was walking in. Either that or he's got enhanced senses too and he's keeping that fact from all of them. That would actually be pretty cool in Harper's opinion, but that's a thought for another time.

"Harper wants to go to the city for the day." Nat tells him as he comes to stand at her side, arms crossed just like hers, and Harper would be lying if she said that the sight wasn't both intimidating and amusing.

Amusing because the two of them look like an old married couple with awfully bitter dispositions, and intimidating because when the two of them are a united force, there's not much anyone can really do to fight back.

"You do?" Steve asks her, turning to her with a quirked eyebrow that's less playful and more critical, and Harper sighs to herself because she knows she's going to have to justify her request to them both, but thankfully Sam jumps in and offers her some assistance.

"She's not grounded anymore, is she?"

Sam's right. She's not grounded anymore, but you wouldn't think it from the looks that both Steve and Nat give him. Sam, being Sam, only laughs at their expressions, standing up from his seat as he begins to make his way for the door, shaking his head playfully, "You guys need to learn to trust the kid. If she wants to go, let her go. Most kids her age would go without asking anyway."

"She already did." Nat says, tone blunt, but Sam has a counter for that as well.

"And she was punished for it." Sam replies, reaching the doorframe and turning back to them, "Give the kid a break. Let her enjoy herself."

She knows that Sam always has her back, but she hadn't expected him to support her on this one. He wasn't happy with her the morning after her last trip to the city (none of them were, really, but Sam was almost as pissed off as Nat, Steve and Tony were), so she's really surprised that he's backing her up on this one.

Beyond grateful for it, but surprised nonetheless.

"Thanks, Sam." She says, smiling, and he smiles back before heading out, leaving her alone with Nat and Steve. Turning back to the two of them, she cracks a smile, "What do you say, guys? Can I go?"

Neither of them seem that onboard with the idea, though Harper's surprised to see that Nat's more willing to consider it than Steve is.

"Have you got your phone?" Nat asks her, still somewhat stoic, and the look of shock that crosses Steve's face as she asks that is unparalleled.

Harper doesn't blame him. She didn't see that one coming, especially from Nat.

"Mr Stark sent it back just this morning." Harper replies, reaching into her pocket to pull out the phone and show it as proof, "I was waiting to get it back before asking you guys. Figured there was no chance of being able to go if I didn't have it."

The chance of Nat and Steve letting her go out without a phone were slim to none. Her chances now still aren't looking too great, but miracles can happen sometimes, which is something that Harper comes to realise when Nat sighs, some of the tension draining from her face.

"Back here no later than nine, okay? And call every hour like you promised." Nat says, and Harper's running towards her excitedly before she can even finish, throwing her arms around her in a hug.

"I mean it." She adds as Harper loosens her grip, stepping back with a grin on her face, "_No_ later than nine."

Harper nods back instantly before looking to Steve, who seems rather perturbed by Nat's choice. He looks like he might say something about it for a moment, but then he sighs and nods towards the door.

"Have fun, kid."

She squeals excitedly, quickly hugging Steve with a broad smile, "You guys are the best! See you later!"

She jumps then, going from the middle of the kitchen in the facility to Queens in the blink of an eye. She appears in an alleyway, which is good as it avoids the confusion of anyone who may be passing by, and she reaches into her pocket to pull out her phone again, this time dialling a number she's been waiting to call.

It rings, and then it rings again. And again. And again.

No answer, so she leaves a message after the shrill beep sounds from the device.

"Hey, Pete! It's me. Harper. Sorry it's been a while. I got grounded and I only just got my phone back." She says, "Listen, I've seen a few videos of this guy on Youtube. Well, I think it's a guy, but it's kinda hard to tell because of their costume. People are calling him the Spider Guy or something like that. I want to try and track him down and I could probably use some help. Call me back when you get this."

She pockets her phone before pausing, taking a moment to scope out her surroundings.

This mysterious Spider Guy has been seen around Queens for a while now - she's seen the videos and read the news stories, and by the sound of it he's some kind of superhero (or she, because it could be a girl in all fairness). Some people have used the word 'vigilante' to describe him, but Harper decided a long time ago to not trust or believe that word.

She doesn't know what she'd do if she met this person (if she had the authority she'd probably recruit them into the Avengers, but she doesn't have that right), but she just wants to meet them. She figured that Peter might be able to help, plus he'd probably love to meet this person too.

She teleports on top of one of the buildings above her, giving her a good view of much of Queens. She figures the best thing she can do is give herself a good vantage point.

She doesn't exactly have much of a plan if she's being honest. She could fly or teleport around Queens all day, but that'll just tire her out. She could try and draw this Spider Guy out, but she'd have to cause enough trouble for that to happen, and she's supposed to be one of the people who _prevents_ trouble, not causes it.

So, she instead waits. She remains at her vantage point, her enhanced senses fine tuned to try and pick anything out that stands out from the usual city noise.

A lot of it is just traffic. Traffic and the bustle of people walking by and talking. She manages to get used to it after a while; she's been getting better at focusing and controlling her senses. The strength was easy to get a handle of. Despite the circumstances of how she got her newer powers, she can't deny that they sure do come in handy.

She knows she's capable of more, but she also knows that she's not ready for that. As much as the phrase bugs her, she's taking 'baby steps' at the minute.

She loses track of time after a while (she even reckons she dozes off at some point), and when she checks her phone she's stunned by how much time has passed.

6:48.

She's gonna have to head back soon, and she can't keep using her sightseeing excuse to sneak off.

She had thought about telling the others why she really chose to come to the city, but she backed out of that for multiple reasons. For one, she doubts they'll want her wasting her time just for the chance to meet someone she's merely seen videos of on the internet. Plus, she kinda wants to respect the privacy of this Spider Guy. She reckons if they wanted a bunch of people knowing their identity, they would've made that information public by now. Meeting them along with the rest of the Avengers just feels like a violation of that privacy.

She decides then and there that she should head home - sure, she's got a few hours until she has to get back, but she's kinda hungry and it's gonna get dark soon. Even with enhanced eyesight, seeing this guy in the dark streets of Queens might be quite the struggle.

"I know you! You're that Spider-Guy from Youtube, right?"

Harper knows that coincidences happen, but this one sure takes the cake.

Straightening up, she focuses on the sound of two voices not too far from her location, tuning into their conversation with her enhanced senses.

"Yeah!" A voice replies, tone enthusiastic yet slightly muffled, "That's right!"

"You're awesome, man!"

"Thanks!"

The conversation goes back and forth for a while, and whilst she listens to it play out, Harper begins to make her way in the direction of the sound. She ends up having to fly between buildings, because she fears that teleporting may make her lose the trail of the conversation, but she eventually comes to a stop atop of a tall building a fair distance from her original vantage point, peering down into the alleyway below from her new vantage point.

She sees him - the Spider Guy - hanging from the side of one of the buildings at the side of the alleyway, though by now the person he was having the conversation with seems to be gone.

Harper figures that now's her chance.

She taps her suit on, choosing to keep the mask off because it's not like her identity's a secret anymore. Taking a deep breath, she teleports down into the alleyway, materialising in front of a very perplexed Spider-Guy.

She expects the masked hero to run away (that's probably what she would do if a random person who's also wearing a superhero suit appeared before her) or maybe even question her appearance, but this guy does neither.

Instead, he jumps down from his hanging point wordlessly, pulling the homemade mask from his face and revealing himself, a single word escaping his lips as a question.

"Harper?"

No way. She can't believe who it is.

"Pete?"

He smiles an awkward smile, raising his hand and giving her a small wave, "H-hey. How...how are you?"

What in the world happened?

* * *

"You gonna tell me how it happened?"

It's a simple question, but at the same time it's not because it'll only lead to even more questions.

She's stood on the opposite side of his room, arms crossed as she leans casually up against the door, whilst he sits on the edge of his bed, shuffling nervously in his place. She doesn't quite get why he's so nervous - they're friends, and he could've run away from her if he really didn't want her seeing him.

Then again, it's Peter, and in the short time that she's known him she's come to notice that he gets awkward quite easily.

"You're not gonna believe me." Peter replies with a laugh, almost sounding embarrassed.

Harper doesn't get that.

"Did you forget who you're talking to, Pete?" She asks, smiling and joking in an attempt to be reassuring, and she knows that it's worked when she sees him smile slightly. She waits a moment before asking again, "What happened?"

He takes a moment and she waits, because she knows that pushing him for an answer won't get either of them anywhere. He responds eventually, and if it weren't for her enhanced senses, Harper reckons she wouldn't have even heard what he said.

"I got bit by a spider."

"A spider?" She questions, eyebrow quirked.

Now, that's a new one.

"I think it was radioactive or something." Peter replies, shrugging, and then he backtracks, his face flushing embarrassedly, "I know that sounds crazy."

"I've heard crazier." Harper replies, because she honestly has, "Where's the spider?"

She'd like to see this 'radioactive Spider'. She's learnt that knowing the sources of your powers and abilities gives you the chance to understand them to a greater level, and in Peter's case the spider is the perfect place to start.

Well, it would be that is, if not for one minor detail.

"I killed it."

"Peter!"

Of course he killed the spider, because if he hadn't then this would all be too perfect and easy.

"I panicked, okay?" He admits sheepishly.

Harper reigns it in as he says that. She'd probably panic and do the same thing, so judging him would only be hypocritical of her.

Sighing, she changes the topic of conversation slightly, "Well, I know that you can stick to walls now. What else did it do?"

She's interested to know what other powers this spider gave him. How much can one little spider do?

"I'm stronger."

Harper had figured that from just looking at him. The last time she saw Peter, his arms looked more like twigs than arms; she can see the change in his arms even through his handcrafted suit.

"My senses are better, too." He adds, surprising Harper.

"They are?"

He nods, reaching for his makeshift suit and grabbing onto the odd looking goggles attached to the front of his mask, "That's why I have these." He explains, "Everything becomes a bit much, so the suit helps me focus. Filters everything that my senses pick up."

She gets that. Sometimes the stuff that her senses pick up can overwhelm her. She knows that Mr Stark modified her suit to filter all of that efficiently when she's in action, but even when she's not her senses can sometimes be a bit much. Thankfully, she's managed to get better at coping with it all, and she reckons she could help Peter do the same.

"I can help you with that." She offers.

"You can?" Peter asks, tone surprised, "T-that would be great. Really great."

"The next time I can get out of the compound, we'll get started. You can be like my superhero padawan." She jokes, cracking a smile, and Peter gets her reference in an instant, smiling back in response.

She waits a moment, remaining in that brief lighthearted moment before asking a more serious question.

"Does anyone know?"

It's a simple question like the others, yet it's one that's difficult to think about. Harper's quite lucky, because she associates herself with a group of superheroes, so they all know who she is and what she can do.

Peter doesn't have it that lucky.

"Only you." He admits, sighing, "If my aunt heard about all of this, she'd freak out, and she really doesn't need that, you know?"

Yeah. She knows.

"I get it." She muses, "Nat gets the same way."

"Black Widow?" He questions, surprised.

"She's got a soft spot. She just hides it well when she wants to."

She'll say it time and time again, but Natasha Romanoff is just a big softie at heart...just don't tell Nat that she said that.

"Why haven't you told anyone?" She asks next, genuinely curious.

Of course, everyone has their reasons. She never needed to have any reasons of her own, but Harper has a feeling that she might understand Peter's perspective. In fact, she thinks that she'd probably follow it if she were in his situation.

"If they know, it puts them in danger too." He begins to explain after a moment of hesitation, meaning weighing down every last one of his words, "I may only be the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, but I know I've already made some enemies for myself. And enemies-."

"Go after the people we care about because they know that it hurts more than when they go after us."

She finishes the explanation for him, because she can tell that he's beginning to stumble over his words and is struggle to articulate what he's trying to say. Besides, she understands what he's trying to say.

He seems relieved that she does.

"Exactly. And if they know, it puts them more at risk." He adds, but then he backtracks all over again, "I know it sounds stupid."

"I don't think it does, Pete." Harper replies honestly, "The people I care about are all superheroes now, and even then the thought of something happening to any of them scares me more than anything. It's not stupid."

He seems surprised that she's agreeing with him. He also seems relieved. She keeps going when he doesn't say anything.

"We can do things that most people can't, and with that comes responsibility. Sometimes the responsibility brings on good things, and other times it doesn't. We have to face both, but we don't have to do it alone."

Loneliness. She's come to learn that loneliness is one of the worst feelings that anyone can deal with. Pain can be managed, hatred can be channeled into something productive, but loneliness just leads to a state of sadness and fear that can't exactly be helped.

She never wants Peter to experience that, which is why she wants him to know that he's not alone and he's not going to be alone throughout all of this.

"I won't tell anyone, Peter. Not even Nat or Steve." She reassures him.

She can tell that Peter's hanging onto the fact that all of this is a secret to his loved ones. It's how he's protecting them. She's not about to take that away from him.

"You won't?" He asks, surprised.

She shakes her head, "You're my friend, so I've got your back."

"Thank you."

That puzzles her. She doesn't expect him to be thankful, nor does she need him to be.

"You don't need to thank me for being your friend, Pete." She tells him honestly, because he doesn't. Besides, she decided the day that she met him that she'd look out for him.

Maybe he doesn't need her to, after all.

He looks as if he's going to say something in response, but he's interrupting by the faint ringing of Harper's phone within her pocket, which the two of them pick up on with full clarity thanks to their enhanced senses.

"Who is it?" Peter asks before Harper can even grab the phone, prompting her to slide the device from her pocket and tap the screen on.

It's who she was expecting.

"Nat." She murmurs, perplexed for a moment, but when she sees the time it hits her, "Shit! I was supposed to call her like twenty minutes ago."

Call every hour. That was Nat's policy, and she didn't stick to it.

She picks up the call rapidly, trying to sound relaxed over the phone despite how nervous she is, "Hey, Nat. What's up?"

She expects Nat to blow up at her, but she gets quite the opposite.

"I thought we had an agreement." Nat says simply, tone stern but neutral.

She doesn't sound _too_ mad, which is a good start.

"Sorry! I totally spaced!" Harper replies, because that's technically not a lie. She doesn't have to specify why that is.

Glancing over at Peter, she notices the nervous expression on his face, and she gives him a small smile to try and reassure him. She reckons he can hear how fast her heart is beating nervously.

"You spaced?" Nat questions.

"Why do you sound so surprised?"

"Because you're supposed to have one of the smartest brains on the planet."

She has to stifle a laugh because she can picture the befuddled expression that's probably crossing Nat's face at this moment.

"Doesn't mean I use it how I should all the time." Harper counters, smiling to herself because she knows that she's countered Nat's argument effectively, and then she adds, "Look, I'm fine. I'll be back soon."

"We'll talk about this later." Nat says curtly before ending the call, and as soon as the line's dead Harper lets out a sigh of relief.

Crisis, mostly, averted.

"Are you in trouble?" Peter asks her instantly as she pockets her phone again, and she shrugs and brushes off his concern.

"Nah. Sam will bail me out." She replies, "Nat's overprotective, but she's honestly a big softie. I think she reckons being intimidating is some backwards way of protecting me from things."

"Reverse psychology?"

She nods, "I think that's the effect she's going for."

He chuckles lightly at that, which makes her smile. She prefers happy and carefree Peter to nervous and scared Peter.

"Do you need to go?" He asks after a moment, the laughter dying down.

"Yeah." She says, tone reluctant, "You still have my number, right?"

"Yeah." He nods, "Yeah, of course."

That's good. She needs to stay in contact with him. Not only just as his friend now.

"Keep doing what you're doing, but try to stay under the radar if you can. You're all over YouTube, so I reckon there's a lot of people out there who'd want to find you like I did." She explains. She notices the way his face pales slightly as she says that last part, so she steps forward and places a reassuring hand on his shoulder, smiling at him, "If there's an emergency, you call me, okay?"

He nods, gulping back a lump in his throat to respond, "Okay."

She nods back, stepping back to give her room to teleport away, but she turns back to him before she goes.

"Oh, and when you want to start upgrading your equipment, give me a call." She says, smirking playfully, "That onsie is only gonna get you so far."

"It's not a onsie." He says, whining a bit like a small child.

It makes her laugh.

"See you around, Spider-Man."

* * *

Nat wasn't happy that she was late, but Sam bailed her out, so it could've been a lot worse. On the bright side, no one took her phone from her this time.


	18. 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to apologize for how late this is. I originally intended for this chapter to come out about two weeks ago, but life came out of nowhere and delayed me a bit.
> 
> Better late than never, I guess! Hope you guys enjoy!
> 
> All comments and kudos are greatly appreciated :)!

**December 25th, 2015**

A scream pierces the silence of the Avengers compound early one very important morning, and the noise of both Steve and Nat bursting into Harper's room is there to accompany it moments later. They both assume that it's a nightmare (which catches them off guard considering she hasn't had one in a couple of weeks), which is why they're so surprised to find Harper sat up on her bed, looking less disturbed and more gleeful if anything.

"What are you doing?" Nat asks, slightly breathless.

"I just realised! It's Christmas!" Harper gasps in response, jumping to her feet upon her bed and moving about excitedly like a child many years her junior.

"That's why you screamed?" Steve questions, tone skeptical.

"Yeah, of course!" Harper replies, pulling a 'duh' kind of expression, "Christmas is my favorite holiday!"

She loves Christmas. She always has. From the food to the presents, all of it is perfect. She's excited for the holiday and unlike it was for her birthday, it's easier to cope with it being without her parents now. If anything good came out of what happened to her, that's it.

And that's really, _really_ looking on the bright side.

"Did someone say Christmas?" Sam asks bursting into the room with a Santa hat on, just as giddy and excited as Harper, and the young girl cheers excitedly at his arrival.

"It's Christmas!"

"It's Christmas!" He cheers back, and the looks that Nat and Steve give him are just priceless.

Their expressions become even funnier when Sam just shrugs back.

"You're encouraging this at seven in the morning?" Nat asks, sounding both stern and surprised, but Sam has a response ready to fire back.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, which I'm not, but haven't you two had us all up training at this time before?"

Steve still doesn't say anything. Nat doesn't exactly have a comeback for that one ready to go.

"Come on, Nat! Don't be a Scrooge!" Harper quips playfully, and Nat turns to her as if to say something.

She doesn't, and Harper can tell that she's trying very hard not to smile at the sight of her excitement.

"Kid, catch!" Sam shouts, drawing Harper's attention back to him, as he tosses a Santa hat of her own in her direction, which she catches perfectly and places upon her head, "Race down to the lounge. No teleporting."

"Okay." She replies, jumping down from her bed as if to run, but then she flies up into the air and out of her bedroom door, Sam calling out to her begrudgingly as he runs behind her.

"Hey!"

"You never said anything about flying!" She calls back, her laughter lighting up the dark hallway, and she teases him playfully as she soars ahead of him, "Keep up, old timer!"

Sam's fast, but he's not fast enough to keep up with her whilst she's flying.

She reaches the living room within minutes, occasionally glancing back to see Sam progressively get further and further out of sight. She touches down on the tiled floor of the living room, and when she does she's surprised to find someone else already in there.

"Wanda?"

The girl is sat there calmly, her legs tucked in where she sits upon the couch and a single book in her hands. She glances up at her, not remotely fazed by her arrival, "Oh. Hello."

"When did you get here?" Harper asks, perplexed.

Wanda saves her page and places her book down as if she's going to reply, but before she can Vision suddenly appears into the room, approaching the two girls with some semblance of concern etched across his robotic features.

"I heard shouting." He says, looking between the two of them, "Is everything alright?"

"It's fine, Vis." Wanda reassures him as Sam runs into the room, breathless.

"You okay, old man?" Harper quips with a playful smirk in his direction, and Sam begins to approach her once he's regained his composure slightly.

"You cheated, kid." He accuses her, clearly frustrated at his loss, but Harper has a counter ready.

"I just played to my strengths."

She's got him there and he knows it.

"Touche."

Nat and Steve arrive a minute or so later, and that excites Harper because that means they can start opening gifts. Rhodey's not here - he's gone to visit his family for the holidays. Harper can't help but wonder why Sam hasn't done the same, and it's not like the rest of them have that option. It's okay though because they have each other.

They exchange gifts for a while. Vision gets her socks, which is sweet because nobody expected the android to get anyone any gifts. Wanda buys her a huge box of chocolates, and Harper's already promised the former Sokovian that the two of them can share it all during their next movie night.

Rhodey left her a Christmas card with some cash, presumably because he didn't have the time to get her any specific gift, but that's fine with her because she can choose something that she wants that way.

"Oh." Steve murmurs suddenly, reaching for a small brown package and passing it over to Harper as they're all opening up their gifts, "This one's also for you. It's from Tony."

Mr Stark's understandably spending the holidays with Pepper. Harper got the two of them a nice Christmas card, and of course she never assumed that he would give her a gift in return, so the package is a present surprise.

"What is it?" She asks, curious.

Steve shrugs, and by this point the others have all stopped opening their gifts to look at hers out of their own curiosities, "Open it and find out." He replies.

She listens to his advice, tearing off the tape from the package and removing its contents, finding it to be an even smaller plastic bag. She opens the smaller bag, finding a note first. She reads the handwritten words aloud, because she knows that the others will only ask her what it says anyway.

"'Thought the suit could do with some upgrades and you could use the help'."

She has a feeling he was trying to get a snipe in at her there. Touche.

She empties the remaining contents of the bag, finding a small computer chip enclosed with a simple label written upon it in black marker.

_'A.M.Y 2.0'_

She holds the chip in her hands, glancing around at the others excitedly, "It's a software update for my suit!"

The others don't seem to share her excitement, some of them even looking confused by her excitement.

"That's...great, Harper." Wanda says after a moment, and it's clear that none of them really understand her perspective at all.

Sighing, she turns to Nat and asks, "Am I really that much of a nerd?"

"I could've told you that months ago." Nat replies, playful smirk and all, and Harper narrows her eyes at the woman, though there's no spite in them.

Everyone begins to continue opening their presents then, and Harper pockets the chip before she has the chance to lose it. As she goes to open her next gift - the one that Steve got for her - she feels her phone vibrate from within her pocket.

She knows who it is before she even checks, and because of that she takes a swift exit from the crowded room.

"I'll be back in a second." She says to the team, excusing herself politely and heading out of the room and down the hall, making sure she's out of earshot before answering the phone merrily, "Hey, Pete!"

"Merry Christmas!" He cheers down the phone, and he's so loud that Harper has to move the device away from her ear for a moment before responding.

"Merry Christmas!" She replies with a laugh, "I'm assuming that you got it."

She actually sent Peter a Christmas gift of her own. It's really not much, and if anything it's more of a practical gift than a fun one, but she knew it would be perfect for Peter.

"I did. Thank you." He replies gratefully, and he pauses for a moment before asking a question somewhat sheepishly, "What is it exactly?"

"One of the prototypes for the control panel of my suit." She explains, "It's not as up to date as my current one, but I figured you could play around with it so you could figure out what you wanted in your suit."

Despite what Mr Stark may think, she has been working on upgrades to her suit. She started with the control panel interface, and she figured that she might as well give Peter her old one instead of just letting it sit around in the lab all day, every day. At least he'll be able to make use out of it.

"That's awesome! Thank you!" He replies gratefully, and as he does Sam walks out into the hall, Santa hat still atop his head.

"I've got to go." She says abruptly yet politely, "Have a good Christmas."

She hangs up the phone before Peter even gets the chance to respond, making a mental note to call him later and apologize for being so rude to her friend.

"Who was that?" Sam asks her as she pockets her phone, and she turns to him and casually remarks.

"An old friend."

That's technically not a lie. Well, the old part might be slightly, but it's close enough.

Sam, being Sam, doesn't question her arguably suspicious behaviour any further, instead gasping in an absurd and over the top manner.

"You have other friends?" He asks, feigning a hurt expression, "Are you trying to replace us?"

"Shut up." She replies with a laugh, beginning to follow him back into the living room, "It's not like I could even if I wanted to."

"Glad you realise that, kid." He says, playfully tousling the hat on her head, and it only makes her laugh even more.

* * *

The day rolls on at a rapid pace, but then again it always seems to on Christmas Day. They all dispersed after a while, and Harper decided to go up to the lab to be productive until all the food for their Christmas Day meal would be ready. She took the new suit chip up with her, figuring that she might as well implement it whilst up in there, but it's not her primary focus at the moment.

She's instead working on something far more intricate and important. Something that she's chosen to hide from the others for her own reasons.

"What are you working on?" Steve asks her, suddenly walking into the lab, and Harper curses under her breath at the unexpected arrival.

What's the point in having enhanced hearing if you can't focus enough to hear people coming?

"Steve!" She yelps, jumping in surprise as she tries to shield what she's working on from him.

"What are you doing?" He asks.

She panics, and for some reason her supposedly enhanced brain tells her to just stand there, frozen, as if doing that will make him not see her or something.

"You know I can still see you right? You can't turn invisible." He replies, clearly amused by her attempt, but remaining as modest as ever and refusing to laugh.

"Not yet." She can't help but murmur under her breath, and Steve manages to pick up on it, his brow furrowing in confusion as he asks.

"What was that?"

"Nothing." She responds quickly, turning back towards her computer screen and hastily attempting to close down some of the slides she has open.

She's not fast enough, and when Steve sees it, he instantly begins to read out what he sees under his breath.

"Longing. Sokovia. Sh-."

Each word feels like a sharp blade. A sharp blade that's being poked into her head with excruciating force, and she feels her anxiety build with each syllable. She knows she has to stop it.

"Stop!" She yells, recoiling out of instinct, and concern instantly overwhelms Steve's face, and he stands there, almost looking wary of approaching her.

He keeps his distance, asking her calmly, "Harper, what's going on?"

She composes herself for a moment, listening to her own heart beat and willing it to slow down to a constant and steady rate. Sighing, she explains it to him, "Look, those are my trigger words, okay? I've been trying to decrypt them for months now. Been trying to force them out of my head."

It's been her focus for a while now. She's kept it under wraps for multiple reasons, and when she sees the expression on Steve's face she remembers why.

Steve's relatively good at masking his emotions when he wants to, but right now he's not hiding it. She can see the pain and concern on his face as clear as day.

He sighs, asking simply, "Why didn't you just tell me that?"

"I didn't want to worry you, okay?" She admits, turning her back to him as she begins to close down some of the pages on the screen, "I mean, for all Nat knows, I'm just working on upgrades to my suit when I come up here."

That's always her go to excuse whenever any of them ask about what she does up in the lab. It's always worked in the past surprisingly. She doubts that it'll work anymore.

Besides, it's technically not a lie. She often works on her suit when the rest of the work begins to overwhelm her, which has a tendency to happen a lot.

When she remains hunched over the computer screen, that's when Steve chooses to step forward, softly placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder from behind.

"We could help you, Harper." He says, tone soft and kind, "You don't have to do this on your own."

She knows that. She knows that she has a support system. That she has a long list of people who would be willing to help her out here, and of course she's beyond grateful for that, but this is something she has to solve herself.

"I know, but I need to." She says, finally turning back to him determinedly, "Today everything's been so perfect and normal, and it's made me realise just how desperately I want to be normal again."

It's put everything into perspective for her. She's enjoyed feeling like a normal kid. She's enjoyed making a new friend in Peter. She's enjoyed building a treehouse and being playful and excitable like most kids her age are. She wants that to be her everyday lifestyle again.

"I know how you feel." Steve replies, surprising her when he admits, "Sometimes I wish I could just be that kid from Brooklyn again."

She's almost relieved. Elated, even. It's nice to know that someone understands her perspective.

"Exactly!" She replies, "You want that life back, but you know that it's impossible because you can never go back to how things were, and parts of you really don't want to either."

There are some parts that she doesn't want to change. There are some parts that she's grown to love and couldn't imagine living without. But, at the same time, there are many parts that she wish she could erase. Parts of her make her wish that she could go back to who she was before all of this happened.

But then she remembers it all and what it's made her become.

"I-...those people broke me down. I'll admit that. But that's exactly why I need to fix this on my own." She tells him, confident despite the slight shakiness in her voice, "I appreciate your support, Steve. I appreciate everything that all of you do for me, but if anyone is going to get me back, then it has to be me. I can't expect someone else to do that for me."

It's complicated. Like really, _really_ complicated. That's part of the reason why she wants to and has to do this by herself. She doesn't want them all getting caught up in it. She knows that it's possible (she wouldn't even bother trying if it wasn't), but it's not going to be easy.

Nothing that's worth it ever is.

"I understand." Steve tells her, being just as understanding as he always is, and if she wasn't grateful for him before, she sure is now, especially when he reassures her by saying, "And before you ask, I'll tell Nat you were working on your suit when I found you."

"Thanks, Steve."

"Anytime, kid." He replies, smiling, and then he nods towards the door, "Come on. The food should be all done by now."

She nods back, intent on following him towards the food that, when she focuses enough, she can smell from even up in the lab. But as they begin to head for the door, and she can't explain why, she suddenly remembers something, and she can't help but mention.

"Before we go, can I ask you something?" She asks him, stopping, and he stops with her, "Remember when Mr Fury and Hill asked me about what happened, and I mentioned that Barnes guy...who is he?"

It's been on her mind for a while now, but she's kept away from the topic out of the fear that she may be straying into territory that she shouldn't be heading into. She sees the twitch of pain that crosses Steve's face, but it's gone before it's even there.

She doesn't expect him to answer, and she's about to tell him to forget all about it, but then he takes a seat with a heavy sigh, and right then and there she knows that it's okay for him to talk about it.

"James Buchanan Barnes. That's his full name. But I knew him as Bucky." Steve says, his tone sounding almost reminiscent, "He was my best friend."

"Was?" She questions verbally, though she had meant for it to remain in her head.

"We fought in the war together, but we knew each other long before even then. He was part of the Howling Commandos."

"I've heard of them." She remarks, the name ringing a bell, "I learnt about them during a History lesson."

She's never been a fan of history. She hates hearing about how badly mankind's screwed up in the past.

Steve goes onto explain something else, and once he does, the tone in the room suddenly becomes far more solemn than it already was.

"On one mission, before I went into the ice, we attempted to board a train in order to capture one of HYDRA's lead scientists. We ran into some problems, and Bucky lost hold of the train."

Sympathy. That's her initial feeling. Pure sympathy and pain for Steve, and the fact that he's clearly trying to conceal his pain as he talks about it makes the situation even worse.

"I-I'm sorry, Steve." She murmurs, her gut twisting painfully as she thinks about it.

She doesn't even know Bucky and this is how she feels. She can't even imagine how Steve feels every time he thinks about it.

"It's okay."

It's not, but Harper chooses not to say that as Steve continues on.

"A couple of years ago, Natasha and I ran into some problems with S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Right. It turned out that HYDRA was hidden within S.H.I.E.L.D the entire time."

She's read into what happened. Despite what they like to think, the people she associates herself with don't encrypt their files very well. She's been meaning to talk to them about improving that, actually.

Steve seems surprised that she knows what he's talking about, to which she shrugs and says, "What? I do my research."

"HYDRA wanted to wipe us out because we knew the truth, but instead of sending boys and bullets, they sent an enhanced person of their own." Steve explains, clearly choosing his words carefully, "He was called the Winter Soldier."

The name is cold. Distant. Somewhat familiar but not quite.

Disregarding the name and regarding her intelligence, she manages to put two and two together and figure out exactly who Steve's referring to, and it's a grim realisation for her to say the least.

"It was Bucky." She mumbles, realisation hitting her, and she looks at Steve in disbelief, "H-how did he survive? And for so long?"

"HYDRA have a lot of secrets."

She can vouch for that, for sure.

"Where is he now?" She asks, though she's fairly certain she knows the answer before she even hears it.

"I don't know." Steve tells her, sighing again, "All I know is - Bucky's still in there."

That strikes her as interesting. Not because of what Steve says, but because of how he says it. She can tell by his tone of voice that he's certain in what he's saying.

"How do you know?"

He looks at her dead in the eye again, saying his next statement with both pride and a sense of disbelief himself.

"He saved my life."

She's stunned and, yes, even thankful to Bucky. She doesn't even know this guy, and she has a feeling that he may not be the best person right now, but she's still thankful to him nonetheless.

She wants to ask more questions even though she probably shouldn't, but her curiosity is spiralling and she can't help it. She goes to ask Steve more questions, but she stops herself when she hears another voice at the door.

"Weren't you the one complaining about how hungry you are all morning?" Nat asks, sights set on Harper despite the fact that she's talking to the both of them, and Harper turns to her and tries to appear as casual as possible, silently thanking herself for getting rid of all her slides beforehand.

"I wasn't complaining, I was...projecting my feelings." She replies, mustering up a playful tone despite the previous solemnness to it, and Nat rolls her eyes back at her, though there's no sincerity to it.

"Sure you were." Nat says, glancing between the both of them now, "We should probably go and eat before Sam eats it all. And you know he will."

Harper briefly glances at Steve, and when she sees the ghost of a smile cross his face, she knows that it's fine. Not okay, but fine, and she makes a mental note to speak to him again later.

Right now, with Nat standing right there, she puts herself in a lighter mood.

"Race ya!" She yells excitedly, flying up into the air and out of the room, soaring away from both adults as Nat calls out to her as she goes.

"No flying inside!"

She's not angry, just jealous. That's what Harper likes to tease her with later at the table, anyway.


	19. 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...it's been a while. I don't know when I'll update again, but I hope it'll be soon and that this chapter will be good enough until then. Enjoy everyone!

**Jan 10th, 2016**

"Alright, onesie boy. Let's see it." Harper says as she takes a seat besides Peter, both of them clad in their super suits for added reassurance.

Sure, they've chosen a secluded yet practical space to meet up, but they're also in New York, and the chance of someone running into them is probable.

They both agreed to meet up every now and then and work on their suits together, more specifically the technology they're packing into them. Sure, they've got superpowers, but it's nice to have a backup plan. Besides, tech can be pretty cool.

Their first order of business? Work on improving those webs that Peter uses. They're strong, she'll give him that, but they sure could do with improving. They may not have full access to a lab or anything, but they've got their brains and some equipment to work with, so Harper reckons that it'll be just fine.

They've both got their cover stories sorted, Harper's being that she's all the way out at her treehouse. The odds of anyone trekking the whole way out there are slim, and even if they do the treehouse has a security system built in. She'll be notified if someone tries to get in, and she should be able to teleport inside before anyone becomes suspicious.

Who knew that treehouse would end up being so useful?

"Onesie boy?" Peter asks, quirking an eyebrow.

"Your suit." She replies with a shrug, and when Peter deadpans her she can't help but smirk, "You're telling me that it's not made out of a onesie?"

She finds it kinda amusing. He doesn't.

"No. It's not." He replies bluntly, either annoyed or very good at pretending that he is, as he turns away from her, focusing on the web blueprints to his side.

"Pete, come on! I'm playing with you!" She replies, playfully nudging him on the shoulder, and when he doesn't turn back to her she reaches into her bag and pulls out her secret weapon, "Will you forgive me if I told you that I brought Thai food?"

That catches his attention.

He turns back towards her, eyes going wide in excitement when he sees the paper bag in her hand.

"You did?"

She nods, placing the bag down between the two of them, "Picked it up from some Thai place in Queens."

"Prachya Thai?" Peter questions.

"That's the one!" She replies, "I figured I'd pick some up since I've never tried Thai food before."

She's always meant to try the stuff, but she's just never gotten around to it. That seems to really surprise Peter, and she wishes she could take a picture of his face right now because it's priceless.

"You what?" He asks, mouth agape in shock, and he looks as if she just told him that she's killed someone.

She had no idea that Thai food meant so much to him.

"Just eat the food." She chuckles, turning back towards her bag to look for her other food item, "I got some ice cream, too, so we probably want to eat that before it starts to melt."

"What flavor did you get?" Peter asks her, pausing between mouthfuls of Thai food that he's already gotten stuck into.

"Beacon Brownie Batter, obviously."

Of course she got Beacon Brownie Batter. She almost picked up Stark Raving Hazelnuts, but she didn't know if Peter would like the flavor. Who doesn't like brownies, anyway?

Turning to the blueprints on the ground, she begins scanning through them, getting a gist of what they're working with. There's a lot of improvements and modifications that they can make, so it's best to find a starting point.

"I say we work on the web tensile strength, first." She suggests, "I mean, they're strong, but I reckon I could slice through them."

"With what?" Peter asks, sounding surprised by what she's suggesting.

"Photokinetic Constructs." She replies, her eyes now fixed on the blueprints, but she knows that he's still confused so she elaborates, "Sticks of light."

"Sabers?"

She shrugs, "I guess." And she looks up in surprise when she hears him gasp suddenly, "What?"

"You're a Jedi!"

"A what?"

He looks at her as if she's just shot him.

"Have you not seen Star Wars?" He asks, his tone suggesting that a negative answer is the wrong one, and he looks appalled when she shakes her head, "You're famous! You could probably get into the film premieres if you wanted to!"

She recognises the name, but she's never really be interested in watching the films. It's just not something that appeals to her.

Besides, she hates being called famous.

"I'm not famous." She replies modestly.

"You're an Avenger."

"Doesn't make me famous." She says before drawing the conversation back to their work, because part of her doesn't want to ruin Peter's idealistic view on the life of an Avenger, "Let's get started on the tensile strength."

They put their minds together, and Harper quickly realises that even without any enhanced intelligence, Peter is incredibly smart. He keeps up with her relatively well, which is not an easy feat when she begins to work on something and her brain spirals.

It's obviously not ideal given their environment, but they manage to get by with the facilities and equipment that they have. In an ideal world, she'd take Peter to the compound and they'd work on it there, but that kinda ruins the whole secretive part of this operation.

After about an hour, they've got their first prototype. Taking the prototype web fluid, she loads it into the web shooters, which are yet another aspect that she's intent on getting around to improving at some point or another.

"Alright." She says, confidently passing the loaded web shooters back to Peter, "Let's test it out."

They test out their prototype, Peter attaching it from a distance to a fence so that Harper can test it's strength. She constructs a saber of light and strikes down on the web, and for a moment she's certain that it's gonna work.

And then it works.

Sighing, Peter turns to her, "Those webs definitely aren't strong enough."

"We'll get there. It's just gonna take some time." She replies optimistically, "Stuff like this doesn't happen overnight."

"My powers did."

"Most stuff like this doesn't happen overnight." She counters, then doing a double take when she considers what he said, "Wait, yours happened overnight?"

"Yours didn't?"

Hers definitely didn't happen overnight. She had no idea anything was different at first. She honestly couldn't pinpoint the exact point it did happen even if she tried.

"Not quite. I didn't even know I could heal like I can until I ran into a tree and avoided a concussion." She explains, chuckling at the startled expression that crosses his face. Reaching into her bag, she grabs a notepad and passes it over to him, "Look, I wrote up some notes that could be helpful."

"You did?" He asks, looking and sounding surprised as he accepts the book.

"This is a team effort, isn't it? Can't expect you to do it all."

That's what they are now. A team. She has a team already: her family. She could also do with a friend, and for that reason among others she's grateful that she chose to track down Spiderman a couple of weeks ago.

She feels her phone shift around in her pocket, and with a sigh she reaches to grab it, "Speaking of team effort."

"Is it the Black Widow?" Peter asks, and a glance down at the screen tells her otherwise.

"Steve."

She answers, because some feeling in her gut tells her that she has to. An unexplained sense of urgency.

"Hey, Steve. Is everything okay?"

"We've got a mission." He replies simply and seriously.

"A mission? Like right now?"

They haven't had a mission in a while, and the ones that they have had have only been small. Still important, but small nonetheless. Something in Steve's voice tells her that this isn't one of those small missions.

"Yes, right now. We're about to load into the Quinjet." He replies, "Where are you?"

"I'm at my treehouse. I'll be right there." She says smoothly, and she knows that he's bought in when he says 'okay' and hangs up.

She's surprised he bought into it. She's quite a bad liar.

Sighing, she pockets her phone and turns to Peter, "Listen, Pete, I've got-."

"To go?"

She appreciates that he understands. That he's not pestering her for more information despite the fact that he clearly wants to. Perhaps he can see how stressed she is, or maybe he just feels it's not his place to ask, but he doesn't say a word as he helps her pack up her stuff in her bag, only stopping to thank her when she says he can keep the rest of the ice cream.

"Keep working on those webs. I'll call you soon."

She's gone after that, stopping off briefly to throw her backpack and any evidence of her disappearance away. She doesn't want to risk any of them finding any of her stuff. They could trace it back to Peter, and she promised she'd keep his identity a secret from everyone. She's not about to break that promise.

She teleports into the hangar right after, suit control panel attached to her wrist and ready to be activated at a moments notice, and approaches Steve and Sam, who are stood waiting for her as the others are loading into the nearest available QuinJet.

"What's going on?" She asks, stopping in front of the two of them.

"You remember that guy I was trying to track down a couple of months ago?" Steve replies.

"Rumlow." She says back, recalling the name in an instant. She's given him some thought herself. Figured she may be able to help them track him down. She never figured out how, "The guy going by the alias of Crossbones, right?"

Steve nods, "We've got a lead on him."

"A lead?"

"A strong one, kid." Sam chimes in, detecting her skepticism, "Believe me, this guy hates us. We wouldn't be following it if we weren't sure of it."

Sam's sure of himself. That's clear. She can tell when Sam's lying or when he's pretending, and right now he's doing neither. He knows this lead is a good one.

Steve seems sure of himself too, and seeing the both of them so sure is enough to sell her on the idea.

"Okay. So, what do we do?" She says determinedly, heading into the QuinJet with the two of them without looking back, though with a certain off feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She keeps it to herself, but something just doesn't feel right.


	20. 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for bad language and description of injury in this chapter. The description isn't graphic, but it deals with paralysis, gunshot wounds and other injuries that may be triggering to some so I thought I'd leave a warning.
> 
> Other than that, enjoy the chapter guys! It's a deep yet short one.

**Jan 11th, 2016**

"Yet another incident in Northern Africa today. This time in Cairo. Mercenaries attacked multiple stations across the Egyptian Capital before being stopped by The Avengers, but not before setting fire to two of the five stations that were hit. We go to our correspondent in Cairo now for further details. Matt, over to you."

She watches the screen intently, eyes glued to the screen as they switch to a field anchor, the sight of some of the wreckage behind him enough to make her stomach twist uncomfortably.

"Thanks, Daryl." The anchor says formerly, microphone gripped tightly within both hands, "Now it has been confirmed that there's seven casualties across the five attacks, with one of them being confirmed as an Avenger."

There it is. She really should've seen it coming, but it's still enough to knock the wind out of her. It's not their fault; it sparks her anger, and she can feel her hands beginning to flicker.

"An Avenger, Matt?"

She knows the answer, but hearing the reporter say it doesn't help.

"That's right, Daryl. Yes."

"Do we know which Avenger that is, Matt?"

She does. She knows exactly who it was because she was there. She was there and she couldn't stop it from happening and she couldn't stop what happened to her either, not that it matters because she's not the one receiving care from the doctors right now.

"We're still awaiting confirmation on that, Daryl, but it has been expected to be either Sam Wilson or Natasha Ro-."

A searing hole of light bursts through the screen right then, preventing the reporter from droning on and on for any longer. She knows that she'll probably be in trouble for that, but she really couldn't care less right now. Maybe if she had used some of that power before, none of this would've happened.

She could've done something.

"How are your legs?"

She turns towards the door to look at Wanda, the older girl hesitantly walking inside and taking a seat at the end of her bed. Harper's not willing to argue her move.

"Fine." She shrugs, voice and expression stoic, "I haven't bled out yet, if that's what you mean."

"And neither will Natasha." Wanda reassures her, though it does quite the opposite, "What happened?"

"I told you, Wanda! The bastard shot her!"

She's all but screaming, but she honestly doesn't give a damn. Maybe the screaming will help distract her from the horrifying images playing on repeat in her mind. She doesn't know if she'll ever be able to un-see it.

"Your hands are doing it again." Wanda tells her, tone cautious yet soft, and Harper clenches her fist and wills the light away on the simple basis that she doesn't want to accidentally hit Wanda.

"I should've realised it was a decoy." She murmurs, defeated, and the pity on Wanda's face is palpable.

"You couldn't have known, Harper. None of us could have."

"But I should have! What's the point of having this fucking brain if you can't use it properly?! I should have known, Wanda! This is all my fault!"

She notices that Wanda flinches at her tone. That only makes her feel worse, but it's not enough to make her stop.

"And what's worse is that the bastard got away! After all of that he got away!"

That's what angers her the most. The bastard caused so much pain and yet he still got away with what he wanted and practically unscathed at that. What kind of justice is that?

"If it's anyone's fault, it's ours. We should've been faster." Wanda tells her, trying to do what they all do whenever missions go wrong - pin the blame on themselves so the others feel better.

No one ever buys it, and neither is Harper right now.

"No. I should've been stronger."

That's all she's been telling herself. She should've been stronger. She should've been faster. She should've stopped all of this. She could've stopped all of this is she tried harder.

"Fuck!"

She's hissing in pain when she hits the floor by her bed, the deadweight of her legs reminding her again and again that she screwed up. She lays there, struggling for the chair that's only inches away but to her feels like miles. It's only temporary according to the doctors, but as Wanda helps her up into the wheelchair by her bed, it sure doesn't feel that way.

"Still can't control the healing?" Wanda asks softly, stepping back to give her space once Harper's settled begrudgingly into the wheelchair.

They said there's too much going on. Too many injuries for her body to cope with. Couple that with the fact she was trying to heal Nat on the jet ride home. Steve had to drag her away, not that she could put up much of a fight.

"I've got it." She grumbles, not looking back as she wheels herself out of the room and leaves Wanda behind.

She's struggling to get used to the stupid chair. She's barely had to use it - she only woke up a few hours ago - but you'd think that having an enhanced brain would make it easy for you. Apparently that's not the case.

She barely manages to wheel herself through the facility because every time she moves she's wincing in pain. Maybe she should be grateful that she can't feel anything in her legs.

She passes by the living space, which she had expected to be empty, but the sound of Steve's voice contradicts that thought.

"She's stable. Not awake yet, but the doctor says she's gonna be okay." He says, tone of voice clearly indicating his relief, "I last checked in about an hour ago."

"And the kid?"

Mr Stark. He's here. She doesn't know why he wouldn't be, especially given the circumstances, but it's still surprising to hear his voice.

"Temporarily paralyzed from the waist down." Steve tells him gravely.

And there it is. The reason she's stuck in this shitty chair. She knows the reason - the doctor made sure to repeat it multiple times just to make sure that she registered it - but it still sucks to hear it aloud again.

"That healing thing not doing anything for her?" Tony asks, surprised.

That would normally be something to smirk about - making Mr Stark surprised - but right now she can't bring herself to smirk. She just keeps listening from behind the wall.

"Doctor says it's slow. The blood loss combined with the paralytic in the gas is a lot for her system to handle."

"How long until she's back up and running?"

"A few weeks."

A few weeks at best, they said. She usually likes to consider herself somewhat of an optimist, but right now she's not exactly leaning into that.

"Weeks?"

"That paralytic Rumlow had was strong, and the blood loss from her legs was extensive. They barely managed to save her legs, Tony." Steve explains, and it's as he says that that she's grateful she was unconscious when they performed surgery on her.

She's even more grateful that she woke up with both legs still attached to her body.

"What about you?"

"We've been better."

"We've also been worse." Tony counters, and then he's sighing deeply, and Harper can imagine him holding his face in his hands exasperatedly, "God, what was I thinking?"

"What are you talking about, Tony?" Steve questions, sounding confused and curious.

"I made a 14 year old kid an Avenger."

Steve tone turns angry, "Tony, you better not be trying to pin all of this on her."

"I'm not, Cap."

It sounds like he is. He's not, because if he really was Steve would've gotten angrier by now, and ordinarily Harper would've too, but she's numb. She knows she's angry, but it's not exactly registering like it usually does.

"Rhodey told me how she was on the QuinJet back home." Tony adds, and this time it's Steve who sighs.

"Nat's important to her. We all are, Tony."

"Which is why I don't think it's fair to send her out there."

Harper catches onto what he might be implying there, and it sounds like Steve does as his tone flares up again like before, "So, what? You want me to pull her from the team?"

When Tony doesn't say anything, she takes that as her sign to stop hiding.

"I know what I signed up for, Mr Stark." She murmurs, clumsily wheeling herself into the room and over to the two men, "You don't need to pull me from the team."

"No one's pulling you from the team, Harper. Wouldn't even consider it." Steve tells her softly, looking down at her with concern when she stops by his side, "How you feeling?"

She shrugs, stating bluntly, "Paralyzed."

The awkwardness in the room is painful. Neither man clearly has no idea of what to say to her, and the tension in the room is only shattered when Sam walks into the room and places a comforting hand on her shoulder, his voice a mixture of calm relief and excitement.

"Hey, kid. She's awake." He says, offering her a small smile.

She nods, murmuring a small 'thank you' to him in appreciation, and then she's trying to turn the chair so she can leave the room. She knows that one of them moves to help her, though she doesn't notice who it is, but when they touch the back of the chair she finally reacts.

"I got it!" She yells suddenly with surprising ferocity, and whoever it is hastily lets go of the chair, leaving her to maneuver herself out of the room.

Admittedly it takes quite a bit longer than it would've if she had help, but it makes her feel slightly less incapable and useless.

She's heading into the hospital wing of the facility a few minutes later, wheeling past multiple concerned looking doctors as she goes. She ignores every single one of them, only focused on reaching one bed at the far corner of the wing.

She's moving at a decent speed at the start, but she finds herself slowing down the closer she gets. Maybe she's scared of seeing the aftermath of what's happened, or maybe it's just because she doesn't want Nat to see her stuck in the god damn chair.

But then Nat sees her from across the room, perking up slightly when she does, and that's when she knows she can't just run and hide.

"Hey, Nat." She says as she wheels over to the woman's bed, trying not to focus on all of the wires attached to her and the pale tone of her skin, "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got shot." Nat replies, halfway being blunt and halfway trying to make a joke.

Only the former half registers for Harper.

"Why are you in that chair?"

She knew that question was coming. Of course it was, because it's the most reasonable question that anyone could ask given the sight of her, but it's not exactly a question she's elated to answer.

"Temporary paralysis."

Hurt and concern register on Nat's face, which only makes Harper feel worse. She shouldn't be concerned about her when she's the one in a hospital bed.

"What happened?" Nat asks, tone serious and the most coherent that it's been, and it's then that Harper knows she has to tell her.

So she tells her. She tells her everything that went wrong on the mission, including the fact that Rumlow shot the both of them. Including how she had to try and stop the both of them from bleeding out whilst they waited for the others to arrive, and by the end of it she's crying into her hands within her chair because she comes to realise just how badly she screwed up.

"I'm sorry, Nat! I'm so sorry!" She gasps out between sobs, unable to look Nat in the eyes as she cries, and it's clear that she knows that because she doesn't ask her to look at her or say anything else.

She instead just reaches out as far as she can from the bed she's confined to, bandaged hand latching onto Harper's un-bandaged one as she cries for the first time since waking up paralyzed, one thought echoing in her mind.

_God, I fucked up._


	21. 21

**January 22nd, 2016**

"Can't you fly?" Wanda asks, reclining back into the uncomfortable chair in the corner of the lab that she's sat on.

Harper told her that she didn't have to stay, that she'd probably get more work done if she was on her own, but Wanda insisted on saying, and the former Sokovian fought back when Harper tried to argue.

And now she's just asking questions and Harper's getting alarmingly close to the end of her tether.

"We've been over this, Wanda. My legs are dead weight right now." Harper grumbles back, eyes remaining fixed on the computer screen, "My flight works because of the way my body channels light and converts it to the energy I use to fly. Without my legs, I can't channel enough of that energy."

She tried. She really, really tried, but it didn't work. She gets about five foot off the ground with her hands alone, but without her legs functioning she just hits the deck again. Nat caught her doing it and look beyond confused as she was trying to help her back into the chair.

That's probably the only silver lining out of all of this - Nat is practically back to normal function. It's surprising what's capable with some of the most advanced tech on the planet.

Well, maybe it's not that surprising, but who really cares?

She can still teleport, but she quickly found out that there's not much use in that if you can't stand. She still crumbles right after she re-materializes.

She keeps trying to tell herself that it's only temporary and she'll be back to normal before she even knows it, but every time she remembers that she's stuck in a wheelchair she loses a bit of that hope.

"You could just wait it out, you know. If the doctors are right, you've only got another couple of weeks of this before you'll be back to normal." Wanda says.

"That's if they're right, Wanda." Harper retorts, "Emphasis on the 'if'."

They're certain that they are right, but Harper still has her doubts. Her pessimism is probably what's making her act like such an asshole, but who knows?

"You're going to be back to normal again, Harper." Wanda reassures her, "If Natasha can recover from a bullet wound, you can get over this."

"Yeah, well, I'd rather not sit around and do nothing until then!" Harper snaps back, tone suddenly turning harsh, and even she winces at the ferocity of it.

Sighing, she turns her wheelchair around to face Wanda, tone less harsh and more apologetic, "I'm sorry that I'm being an asshole."

"Took you long enough to realize it." Wanda retorts, unperturbed, but her voice has no malice to it.

_Touche, Maximoff. Touche._

They get a mission alert right then and there, Harper's eyes darting over to Wanda's as it sounds. The two of them dart out of the lab, Harper struggling to keep up with the other girl from within her wheelchair.

She really hates the stupid chair.

She doesn't know what the mission could be, but all she knows is that she wants to help, wheelchair-bound or not. She's gonna find a way to do something.

They rush down into the control room, finding both Sam and Steve already suited up in there, the latter of the two passing out of the room as they rush in.

"Wanda, suit up and meet us in the hangar in five!" Steve orders as he passes out of the doorway, Wanda obeying his order in an instant and rushing off to get suited up as the alert still blares loudly.

"Whoa, what's going on?" Harper asks, frantic eyes darting over to Sam, "It's not Rumlow, is it?"

Rumlow got out of the last situation relatively unscathed, so he could easily be at it again. The thought of it makes her feel sick to her stomach considering what happened the last time they dealt with him.

"Not this time, kid." Sam reassures her.

She nods, beyond relieved that it's not Rumlow again. She goes to try and move out of the chair despite the futility of it, and when she does Sam catches her within a second.

"Hey, hey! What are you doing?" He questions, gently placing a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

"Trying to get ready for the mission." She says bluntly, feeling that it's obvious.

She's not dead and she's enhanced. Admittedly she's at a bit of a disadvantage right now, but she's still alive and therefore able to help. That's how she views it.

Sam seems to have a slightly different point of view on the matter.

"You're not going anywhere, kid." He tells her, deflating any hope she had in getting involved in the mission, "Even if I wanted you to help on this one, I'm not trying to stand up against Nat right now. I'm surprised she hasn't confined you to your bed yet."

Nat's always been overprotective. She hadn't expected that to change after that last mission, but Nat's kept her distance. She hasn't been too overbearing, probably because she knows she'd come across as somewhat hypocritical if she was. You can't exactly preach about safety and taking care of yourself when you're recovering from a gunshot wound.

Harper shrugs, "Probably because she knows that I wouldn't listen."

That's true. She wouldn't. The idea of being confined to a wheelchair is enough for her. Extending that to being confined to just a bed wouldn't end well. She'd snap after less than a day.

She looks up at Sam, expression pleading, "Please, Sam. I know I can help."

She can see the conflict on Sam's face. There's a part of Sam that always agrees with her. The part that's like a loveable uncle that always wants to say 'yes'. The part that knows that if it wasn't for the paralysis, she'd be helpful on this mission.

But then there's the other part of Sam. The part that's arguing with the fun-loving side and is causing the conflict that's showing. The part that knows that she's crippled and is in no state to help despite her insistence that she is.

And it's the latter part that wins the battle.

"Sam."

Sighing, Sam's eyes dart towards the door, where Rhodey is waiting there for him all suited up.

"It's time to go." Rhodey tells him, "The others are waiting in the QuinJet."

Sam nods back, telling Rhodey that he'll be there in a second. Rhodey accepts his response and rushes off to meet the others, the sound of his metal suit clanking down the hallway clear as day even without advanced senses like hers.

Sam looks down at her, attempting to cover up his conflicted expression with a smile, "I know you wanna help, but it looks like you're gonna have to sit this one out."

He squeezes her shoulder, perhaps attempting to be reassuring, and then he's running out of the room and down the hall after Rhodey, and it's only when he's out of sight that she realises something in what he said.

"That better have not been a joke!" She yells angrily, wheeling herself out into the hallway to watch him run off, "I can still teleport, you know?!"

Sam doesn't hear her - or perhaps he just ignores her - but it's not long until he's out of sight, leaving her alone in the dark hallway of the facility.

She feels like she's been left behind, and if she's being honest she also feels pretty useless. She can't go on missions, she can't walk, she can't fly...

"I can still teleport." She murmurs, overwhelmed as both realisation and a new idea strike her at once, and she's scrambling to pull her phone out from her pocket, the cogs in her brain spinning rapidly by the time she dials the number.

"Pete, I need your help."

* * *

"So this is only temporary, right?"

She appreciates Peter's concern and willingness to help her. He surprisingly didn't question her too much when she called him and asked if he'd help her out with an invention. He didn't question her when she said she'd teleport him to the lab in her high-tech treehouse in the middle of the forest.

He did, however, question her when she arrived to teleport him to the treehouse in question, only to collapse to the floor upon arrival. His confusion soon developed into concern when he watched her stumble into a wheelchair when they arrived back at the treehouse, and when she could tell he was dodging the multiple questions he clearly had, she caved and told him everything.

Well, she says everything. She left out some details that obviously needed to be left out. Intentionally didn't mention certain aspects of the story that she didn't particularly want to relive. She had hoped that explaining the situation to him would've helped quell his concern, but it only seemed to make things worse.

That probably shouldn't surprise her.

"We can hope." She replies as she continues to work at her desk, focusing intently on the project in front of her.

"Hope?" Peter asks, tone frightened, "You're not gonna be stuck like this, are you? Why aren't you healing?"

"Lost a lot of blood." She replies, "Combine that with the paralytic in the gas...let's just say my legs are pretty screwed."

Enhanced healing can really only get you so far. According to the doctors, it's actually the only thing that saved her legs. Her body managed to slow some of the bleeding before they could properly tackle it with the right equipment.

"So you called me here to pass you tools?" He asks, perplexed, as he passes her yet another screwdriver from the workbench that's just out of reach for her.

That's not the only reason she called him here. She needed someone to bounce ideas off of. Someone to convince her that her idea isn't completely and utterly farfetched.

She needed a friend.

"What? I'm crippled." She replies, shrugging, glancing over her shoulder to look at his stunned face, "But, if I can get this to work, I won't be anymore."

He nods, seemingly done with his questions or just leaving them be for now, and she turns back to her work as he paces around the room behind her.

The room's silent for a few moments, save for the small noises made from her tinkering with her tech, but then Peter comes to stand by the workbench to her side.

"So you really built this place, huh?" He asks, looking around the room with an awestruck grin on his face.

"With Mr Stark's Iron Legion, yeah." She explains, pausing her work temporarily to look over at him, "It's a good place to get away to. I would say we could use it to work on your suit, but we'd be running the risk of one of the team finding you."

"This place has a security system, right?"

She nods, "I wouldn't have built it without one."

The security system was one of her first priorities, which is ironic considering its location. It's not like anyone's gonna appear and rob the place.

"So why don't we just widen the perimeter it scans for? That way you could see someone coming from a mile off." Peter suggests.

"Why didn't I think of that?" She murmurs, mentally scolding herself for not using her brain to come up with something so simple yet effective. She turns back to her work, adding, "I'll get to work on it as soon as I've finished this."

"When did you start working on this stuff, anyway?"

"The day after I woke up like this. Didn't like the idea of being stuck in a chair from the get-go." She replies, concentrating on fixing up the final part intently, and even Peter falls silent as she concentrates on finishing it up.

"I've got it!"

She could jump for joy. She probably would if she could get out of the chair, but hopefully with her new invention she'll be able to.

"Are these leg braces gonna work?" Peter asks, marvelling her new creation, "I mean, they look awesome, but are you...you know?"

"Gonna be able to walk?" She asks, and he nods, "We won't know until we test them out."

That's easier said than done. Getting the leg braces set up on the floor isn't the issue, but getting up from the wheelchair to put the braces on is easier said than done. Peter sees her struggling and goes to try and help her, but she shrugs him off.

"I've got it." She insists even though she most definitely doesn't have it, and it's clear to Peter that she doesn't because he waits a few more moments before trying again.

Harper wants to shrug him off again, wants to tell him that she has everything under control, but it's clear that she doesn't and there's no point in lying if he knows the truth.

So she lets him help, murmuring a 'thank you' as the leg braces are attached firmly to her legs and he steps back. She doesn't like to accept help because it makes her feel weak and useless, but maybe it shouldn't. Maybe part of her problem is that she's too stubborn to accept help when she needs it.

"Is there an on switch for these things or something?" Peter asks, perplexed, and Harper answers by pressing the button on the side of the braces, causing them to light up as they power on.

She remains in her seat, looking over at Peter with a mixture of apprehension and excitement, "If my schematics and calculations were correct, I should be able to stand if I've got these things on."

"Should?"

She shrugs, "Well, yeah. Margin of error in the calculations combined with human error in the manufacturing process could make all of this a complete waste of time, but I'm optimistic that it won't."

"You're really not selling this, Harper."

Harper laughs for the first time since she woke up paralyzed; she tries to stand up, stumbling slightly on her first attempt, and she notices the way Peter moves slightly closer with a concerned expression on her face. Even she's worried because she feels as if she's gonna fall forward, but she surprises even herself when she manages to steady herself on her own two feet.

It takes a few moments - the unfamiliarity the situation combined with the fact that she hasn't stood up for almost two weeks is what makes her stumble - but she manages to gain control, and it that moment she's no longer paralyzed.

"I can stand! They're working!" She gasps, both surprised and elated at the fact, and Peter's wearing a grin on his face to match her own. She rushes across the room to her monitors, beginning to run new schematics at a frantic and excited pace, "Now, if I can install these into my suit, I should be good to help on missions again before I've fully he-."

"What's that?" Peter asks walking up behind her, pointing to one of the monitors to her left that's blaring brightly.

She was so caught up in making her schematics that she didn't even notice that it was going off.

"I rigged the monitoring system to go off if there's any threats reported on the news." She explains, turning to focus on the screen herself, "Figured I could try and help sometimes."

She focuses on what the screen's showing, figuring out where exactly it's showing at about the same time that Peter does.

"That's Manhattan Bridge." He murmurs, watching as intently as her as the headlines scroll across the bottom of the screen.

"Armed gunmen." Harper concludes, turning away from the screen and crossing the room as Peter continues to watch in horror, "Looks like they might have a bomb."

"A bomb?" He repeats, stunned, as he notices that she's already on the other side of the room, "Wait. What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna go and stop these guys." She replies as she begins to search for what she's looking for, "There's no time for me to put the leg braces in my suit, and I can't exactly fight without them, so I'm improvising."

"Improvising? With what?"

"Gimme a second...I got it!" She murmurs as she searches through the drawers at the side of the room, eventually finding exactly what it is that she's looking for. She slips it on over her head and turns back to Peter, proud grin on her face.

"A vest?" He questions, clearly not a fan of her backup plan from the get-go.

"A bulletproof one." She counters, crossing the room to stand back by the monitors, "It's no suit, but it'll have to do."

"You can't go up against those guys on your own, Harper."

She appreciates his concern, but she tries to reason with him.

"I've faced worse than a couple of wannabe terrorists, Pete. I'll be fine." She counters, "Trust me on this one. I've got this."

"Then I'm coming with you."

She should've known that he would've said that because he's just like her and that's exactly what she would've said in his position, but the idea still doesn't sit well with her.

Peter's strong, and she knows that they'll be stronger together, but he's only really had experience dealing with common criminals in and around Queens. She feels like pseudo-terrorists is quite a big jump from that.

"Nope. No you're not. Not a chance." She insists, shaking her head profusely.

There is no way, _absolutely_ no way, that he's talking her into allowing this.

* * *

"I don't know how you talked me into this." She grumbles, looking over. begrudgingly at Peter as they observe the bridge from a distance, planning when it's best to intervene.

The guys on the bridge seem to be standing their ground at the minute, but the both of them are smart enough to realise that that can only be temporary, and if they don't intervene soon, the situation can quite easily spiral out of control.

She couldn't talk him out of coming with her - it's not like she could leave him behind at the treehouse, and he had insisted that he would've just followed her if he was dropped home. She did drop him home, but only to quickly wait for him to change into his suit before heading back out again, and she chose to not really argue with him because she was certain that there'd be no convincing him.

"I wasn't about to let you go into this alone." He replies determinedly, mask gripped tightly between his hands, "Besides, I'm Spider-Man."

"Wearing a half finished suit." She retorts, though it's rich coming from her and he knows it.

"You're not even wearing a suit!" He counters, forcing her to back down because she knows that there's no arguing that. A single bulletproof vest is hardly an adequate substitute for an entire super suit, but it's not like she had much to work with.

"How are your legs?" He asks, clearly concerned, with a glance down at her crippled legs.

The braces are a bit strange to get used to, but she's adjusting. She's had to adjust before. This is no different.

"Useable. Not gonna be able to fly, though, but teleportation's still a go so I'll get around it." She replies optimistically, eyes scanning the bridge below them. Even without enhanced sight, the chaos going on is as clear as day.

Sighing, she glances over at Peter, "You ready?"

He nods back, face showing a mixture of apprehension and anticipation, but also a sense of excitement and readiness. She understands both.

He pulls the mask down over his face, which Harper takes as her cue to grab onto his arm, and then she's teleporting the both of them down onto the bridge, and the shock that registers on the eyes of the masked men waiting for them is laughable.

"Go!"

The two of them jump into action, breaking off to take down as many of the terrorists as they can. They identified seven hostiles when they were scouting the bridge, but Harper reminded Peter that they have to be vigilant for any that they may have missed, though she doubts that to be the case. The only positive is that they managed to confirm the lack of a bomb. The news reported that fact incorrectly, but it still doesn't diminish the threat.

She loses herself in fighting them off, surprised by how much mobility the leg braces have granted her. She's teleporting around the bridge frantically, avoiding each attackers gunshots long enough to disarm them of their weapons and discard them by hurling them off the edge of the bridge into the waters below.

She takes down two of them without a hitch, but the third one she comes up against puts up more of a fight. He starts firing before she even realises that he's there, cursing loudly as the gunshots ring out across the bridge, and she barely has enough time to duck behind a truck for cover.

She breathes in deeply, slamming her head against the back of the truck in frustration, and it's right now that she wishes her and Peter had some kind of comms system going because she could really do with some support right about now. She can't see Peter, but she can hear him further down the bridge, and she can't tell if that worries or reassures her more, because the sounds of the guns firing only seem to be getting louder and louder as if they're getting closer to her.

But then the gunshots stop getting louder, and the only noise she can hear is distant, indicating to her that it's from Peter taking down the guys down at his end.

And then there's the sound of a bullet colliding with metal, and it takes her several seconds to realise that the bullet in question didn't hit the truck or another nearby vehicle, but that it struck one of her leg braces instead, and the leg enclosed in the brace it strikes goes back to being lifeless and void of motion again.

She spots him then, approaching with his gun raised and a grim smile plastered across his masked face, but she reacts faster than him.

The beam of light hits his hulking figure, the grin slipping from his face as he goes flying backwards into a nearby car, his body crumpling to the floor weakly like a rag doll.

She panics for a second, knowing how powerful those blasts can be, but when she tries to stand she remembers that one of her legs is dead weight again as she slumps back down against the side of the truck, instead trying to focus in on a heartbeat other than her own racing one.

She sighs in deep relief when she finally finds it, because she's not a killer and she doesn't want to be.

"Harper! I got five of them! Did we get them all?"

Peter hobbles around the corner then, mask and suit still both surprisingly intact, and she can tell that he's smiling beneath his mask. He falters when his eyes land on her, tone switching from elated to petrified.

"Harper?"

"I'm fine. The bullet hit the leg brace." She explains, reassuring him as he kneels down by her side, "And yeah, we should've got them all."

He nods, momentarily relaxing for a moment, but then he suddenly tenses again and murmurs gravely, "Your leg's bleeding."

She glances down at her leg, only just noticing the crimson fluid pouring out of it. It's not bleeding profusely, which she supposes is a plus, but it's still bleeding. She figures the bullet must've gone through the metal of the brace.

"At least I can't feel it. It'd probably hurt like a bitch." She remarks, and before Peter can say anything to counter her, Harper picks up the sound of sirens and men's voices in the distance, and it doesn't take long for her to put two and two together.

"The police are coming. You need to get out of here."

If the police find her that's no big deal, because she's an Avenger and her identity is hardly a secret anymore. However, Peter's constantly said how he wants to keep his real identity a secret, not only for his own safety but for the safety of the people around him. The police finding him would jeopardize that.

He shakes his head profusely, "I'm not just gonna leave you here."

She appreciates him wanting to stand by her more than she can express, but that's not what she needs right now. She needs him to, instead, prioritize himself.

"If you want to keep being the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, you're gonna have to." She explains, offering him a reassuring smile when she can tell she's not convincing him very well, "I'll be fine. I promise."

She can tell that he doesn't want to go, but the sounds of the police officers approaching are getting louder, and she looks at him pleadingly as the noises get louder. Sighing, he nods, and then he's leaping up and swinging off of the bridge and out of sight, leaving Harper sat alone, bleeding on the ground, as the officers approach her, perplexed and accusatory expressions across their faces.

"Hey, officers. Sorted that terrorist problem out for you." She jokes, though none of them laugh, and she can't help but get the feeling that she might be in trouble.

"You reckon you could help me up?"


	22. 22

**January 23rd, 2016**

Harper knows that she's gonna have to deal with the team when they get back, and she's almost certain that they're gonna be pissed off with her. She knows that Nat will be, and so will Steve most probably, so she's not exactly forward to dealing with that. She's dealt with them being mad at her before, but if the angry expression on the doctor's face is even a slight indication to how mad everyone is, she should be bracing for a storm when the team gets back.

The police weren't too mad with her actually. If anything they were more confused. They bought her story when she said that she fought off the terrorists on her own, keeping Peter's cover intact for another day, and they helped her slow the bleeding in her leg before doctors could arrive to help.

Less than an hour later, she was being loaded into a QuinJet that someone from the facility had sent to collect her; upon arrival back home she was transported to the hospital wing, and on the way Agent Hill informed her that the team had been contacted and were on their way back immediately.

That was a few hours ago, which means she's probably got about an hour left before she needs to run like hell and hide.

"Are you trying to get yourself permanently paralyzed?" The doctor questions disapprovingly, moving on from patching up her bullet wound to assess her other injuries.

"Gonna go with 'no' on that one, doc." Harper quips back, and the doctor's disapproval only seems to grow.

She shakes her head, tone stern, "This isn't a joke, Harper. You're not invincible."

"I could be." Harper mumbles.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

The doctor's not impressed with her - far from it - but she just doesn't get why everyone's so hung up on all of this. She's alive, and realistically if her and Peter hadn't gotten involved, people would've died. If they have the power to stop stuff like this from happening, then why shouldn't they?

"The rest of the team are on their way back and they're not happy with you." The doctor explains, moving to place her hands on Harper's shoulder, "Count to three."

"Why?" Harper asks, but then she hears her shoulder getting clicked back into place and a sharp sensation of pain appears alongside it, making her hiss in agony.

"Shit!"

"Like I said: you're not invincible."

"It could've healed itself!" Harper exclaims, looking at the doctor with a sharp glare.

She hadn't even noticed that her shoulder had dislocated.

"Any other injuries are only going to extend your recovery period, which is now longer than anticipated as it is." She explains, surprising Harper, "You think you could get shot in the leg again and walk away completely fine? It doesn't work like that, Harper. Not even for someone like you."

Most people would call that a sharp dose of reality. Harper prefers the term bullshit.

"How long am I gonna be stuck like this?"

The doctor moves over to the monitors by the side of her bed, reluctant to give an answer. That only makes Harper more frantic.

"How long, Doc?" Harper repeats, "How long?"

Sighing, the doctor replies, turning from the monitors to look at her pitifully, "Another month at least. Maybe even two."

"I'm not staying like this for that long!" Harper exclaims, shaking her bleary head rapidly, "I can't! I won't!"

She's spiralling, panic and anger and confusion all molding into one. She thought it sucked when she only had a couple of weeks left in the chair, but now she knows that was nothing in comparison to how she's feeling right now.

"You're gonna have to, Harper. You need to take the time to recover."

"No." She insists, ignoring the doctor's calm and reasoning tone, "I've got the braces. I-I'll just use those. It shouldn't be too hard to repair the one that was broken."

"You need to rest, Harper." The doctor repeats, adding with a sigh, "I've already been authorized to take the braces from you."

Hearing that, knowing that her one shot of mobility until she's recovered is getting ripped away from her, combined with the mounting panic she can feel setting in more and more by the second, is what really makes her snap.

She reaches for the wires connected to her arms, but the doctor catches onto what she's trying to do before she can pull it out, and she desperately calls for help as she struggles to restrain her, "A little help here!"

More doctors run in, though Harper doesn't count how many because she's too confused and angry to bother, and she's screaming and pushing with all of her strength to force them off of her, "Get off of me!"

She's being irrational - anyone could make that judgement - but she's hardly in a rational state of mind as it is so it makes sense. She keeps fighting back, which isn't too hard given the added strength she has even when hospitalized, but then doctors suddenly back off, one other person coming into her line of sight to replace them.

"Mr Stark?"

He doesn't say anything at first, instead glancing around at the crowd of doctors. They all leave without saying another word, leaving just him and Harper alone in the hospital wing.

She should probably be worried about that.

He takes a seat at the side of her bed with a sigh, and that's when Harper knows that she's really in trouble.

"Sometimes I wonder if you're trying to give us all heart attacks, kid." He says exasperatedly yet tiredly, "I mean, you were asked to go and stay in bed, not run a marathon."

"No one technically told me to stay in bed." Harper muses, trying to crack a joke.

He's not buying it in the slightest.

"This isn't the time to be a smart ass, kid."

"Kinda hard when your brain's wired like mine."

She doesn't know why she tries to be funny again because he's clearly not amused, and she doesn't even understand how she's so calm given what just happened.

She may be calm, but he's certainly not.

"Just zip it, kid!" He snaps, the harsh tone of his voice startling her, but he doesn't seem to care as he keeps yelling, "What?! Do you think you're being a hero by almost getting yourself killed constantly?! Do you think that it makes you a better Avenger?!"

She can feel it. Glowing hands.

"Better than one who's stuck in a wheelchair! I'm no use stuck in that chair, Mr Stark!" She shouts back, standing her ground, "I was trying to make myself useful!"

"You're wrong, kid. You're no use dead." He says, rising from the chair and pacing to the other side of the room, hand raised to the side of his head as if he has a headache. He sighs exasperatedly, "You would've been out of that chair in a couple of weeks if you had listened to the team."

It sucks because it's true. She most likely would've been out of the chair and back to normal, but now she's gonna have to spend even more time stuck in it.

"So what, Mr Stark?" She asks after a moment, trying to disguise the hurt expression that she can tell is making its way onto her face, "You're mad at me now?"

If she's honest, she understands why he's mad. She gets why all of them may be mad at her, so she's fully expecting him to say that he's mad.

Except he says something even worse.

"I'm not the one who's mad, kid. I'm just disappointed." He replies, "You've managed to piss off a lot of people, Harper. Why do you keep doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Acting like an impulsive teenager. Why don't you stop and think about your actions?" He says exasperatedly, suddenly pausing as an aghast expression crosses his face, "God, I sound like my Dad."

That's true. He does sound like a Dad. It's really weird and also incredibly frustrating, because he's not her Dad. None of them are her parents. She considers them all family - of course she does - but it doesn't mean they can all act like parents. It's irritating, and she knows that they care, but it drives her nuts.

"Because I am one, Mr Stark." She counters, "Teenage rebellion is normal."

Except for most teenagers, their idea of rebellion is coming back twenty minutes late on their curfew, or 'borrowing' ten bucks from their parents wallets, but she doesn't mention that. Doesn't stop him from doing it though.

"But you're not normal and you need to understand that! You need to start listening to us!" He shouts, voice raised again like before, except this time Harper doesn't react because she saw it coming.

He falters, perhaps realising how badly he snapped, taking a deep breath before speaking again in a low toned voice, "You know what? Maybe this is partially my fault. I made a kid an Avenger."

She doesn't need to think too much to realize what he's implying, and she quickly concludes that it hurts more than any bullet wound ever has. She looks at him, still trying to disguise her hurt, because she expects him to say something else.

But he doesn't. He just stands there, wearing the same constant expression of disappointment on his face, and the arrival of someone else is the only thing that draws Harper's attention away from his devastating expression.

"Sam?"

He walks in, wings still on but goggles up, and the expression on his face isn't far off from Tony's, making her heart sink even further into her stomach. Tony turns away upon his arrival, briefly patting his shoulder as he passes on his way out.

"She's all yours, Wilson."

Sam nods, murmuring something back, and then he goes to stand where Tony was stood before him, not even bothering to attempt to sit down given what he's wearing, which is admittedly a smart move.

"How many times are we gonna go through this, Harper?" He asks after a few moments, expression grave but clearly still trying to be understanding, "I know you want to help people, but-."

"But I need to stop and think?"

He shakes his head, "You need to stop and listen."

He's got a point.

She can tell that he's mad - she'd be surprised if he wasn't - but it's clear that he's trying not to lose it with her like Tony did before. Maybe he heard that part of their conversation and that's why he's trying to dance around it, or maybe he's just trying to spare her feelings (as if they deserve to be spared).

Or maybe he's just trying to be Sam. The Sam that treats her with kindness even when she's been a brat and doesn't deserve it.

"How was the mission?"

It's such a trivial question, but it's one she's had on her mind for a while now. She shouldn't be the one asking the questions right now, but Sam's kind enough to answer.

"Successful." He says simply, adding, "No one died."

"Is everyone alright?"

He shrugs, "They've been better."

"I'm sorry."

It's pathetic. Incredibly pathetic, even. But she doesn't know what else to say other than the undeniable truth that she is. She keeps having to say it, but that's on her because she keeps screwing up. Seems to be every couple of months at the minute.

"I know." Sam replies, still clearly frustrated and trying to hide it, as he sighs deeply, "It's just...you don't always have to try and be the hero, Harper."

He's right. She needs to stop trying to be the hero because she's not. She's just a kid.


	23. 23

**February 1st, 2016**

Harper supposes it could be classed as karma. She acted like a total asshole - perhaps both because she wanted to help and to fulfil some kind of backwards hero complex she's starting to suspect she may have - and now the others are ignoring her. It's been 8 days and they all still don't want anything to do with her.

Well, Sam's the only exception, but Sam is Sam, and she has her theories for why he's still talking to her.

She'd be lying if she said that it didn't hurt. Her entire family is ignoring her. It sucks, but when she realizes that, all she can think about is the pain she keeps putting them all through by acting like an idiot.

Sam left out most of the details - she can tell - but he told her how they all were on the QuinJet back home when they heard what had happened. Admittedly most of the emotion was anger, but hurt was definitely mingled in there. Hurt and confusion and frustration, all of which she seems to keep causing for them.

Every time she tries to do what she thinks is best, someone always seems to end up getting hurt.

"What about the braces?" Peter asks her between mouthfuls of Sour Patch Kids, the bright packaging visible over the clear connection of their video call.

Harper prides herself on her treehouse, and one of the things she got just right was the Wi-Fi connection. She thinks that it's even better than the connection in the facility which is why, among other reasons, she always escapes to her private base of operations whenever calling him.

"I'm sending them over to Mr Stark. He's sending someone over to collect it all at some point today." She replies.

She decided that it was for the best. It keeps her from being tempted to use them again, and realistically there are people out there who are gonna need them a lot more than her. Mr Stark can help them get that tech.

"Mr Stark? As in the Tony Stark?" Peter asks, reeling in his excitement when Harper looks at him questioningly, "Sorry. I just can't believe that you know him. Or that I'm friends with an Avenger."

He seems to forget every time. He always gets so excited when she brings them up. She doesn't exactly blame him. They are pretty cool, especially when they're not mad at you.

"I'm not even sure if I am an Avenger anymore, Pete." She admits, sighing, and he frowns.

"I thought you said they didn't kick you from the team."

"They didn't, but no one's talking to me. I mean, Sam is, but I feel like he's only doing that so I don't go insane. Even Vision's annoyed at me and he's an android." She explains, both exasperated and sad, but desperately trying to hide the latter from her friend, "I get why they're mad. I screwed up."

"I'm sorry if I made things worse." Peter mumbles.

"You didn't, Pete. I probably would've died on that bridge if it wasn't for you." She replies, shaking her head profusely, "Besides, no one's brought you up since it happened, so I don't even think they know you were there."

None of this is his fault, and the fact that he even thinks that it could be saddens her. That's the thing about Peter - all he wants to do is help. She swears that the boy doesn't have a bad bone in his body. He just wants to do good.

That's probably why he looks so crestfallen when he realises that no one noticed his heroics on the bridge, but she's quick to try and reassure him.

"See it as a positive, Pete. Your cover's still intact." She suggests optimistically as she glances between the monitors in front of her.

Her and Peter have been sending each other links to Vine Compilations on YouTube. It's sorta like a running gag they've got going. He sent her a hilarious one earlier this morning, so she's been searching for one to send back to him before she even called him.

She goes back to the homepage, hoping a good one might pop up in her suggested section, but as she does she finds a different kind of video there instead.

"Hey, have you seen this?" She murmurs, eyes fixed on the title and thumbnail of one video in particular.

"Seen what?"

She sends him the link whilst pulling up the video in question on her own monitor, both impressed and alarmed by its contents.

"Someone caught you on camera beating up some thugs. It's blowing up." She says, watching the grainy video meticulously.

It's hard to make out, but you can tell that it's Spider-Man by the flashes of red and blue mixed in with the darker figures. By the looks of it, Peter's kicking their asses.

"Oh, yeah." Peter says, nervously scratching the back of his head in classic Peter fashion, "That's from the other day. I didn't think anyone was around."

"What were they doing?"

"Trying to rob a couple of kids."

"Kids?" She asks, grimacing at the thought, "And I thought arms dealers and terrorists were the scum of the Earth."

God, she hates guys like that. Out of anyone you could terrorize or attack, they have to pick kids. Defenseless kids. They're all nothing but cowards.

"Those kind of guys are all over the city."

That she had expected. Whilst some parts of the city are associated with luxury and wealth, over parts are not so much. Crime is inevitable.

"Well, thank God the people have got a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man looking out for them." She quips, smiling, "I wish we could help stop those kinds of people more, but we get caught up dealing with-."

"Arms dealers and terrorists?"

"Don't forget flying psycho androids."

The two of them laugh, this time not about vines or memes that literally no one else around them understands, but over common ground. Well, somewhat common ground.

An alert pops up on her monitor then. The person who's supposed to be collecting the braces isn't far out. She doesn't know who Mr Stark's sending - she didn't feel it was her place to ask - but she doesn't want to be late for them.

"Oh, I gotta go. Mr Stark's employee's not far out." She says, switching off the monitors before looking back to her phone with a smile, "Stay safe, Spider-Man."

"You too, Beacon." Peter quips back, smiling, and then he's gone.

She grabs her phone and teleports back into her room, surprised with her accuracy. She lands slightly haphazardly on her wheelchair, but it's not bad enough that she needs to call Sam for help. He's helped her out a couple of times this past week (mostly because she hasn't tried to ask the others); she's trying this new thing where she doesn't act like a stubborn asshole and actually accepts the help that people give her.

It's working out for her so far.

She picks up the case full of tech, resting it on her lap as she wheels her way through the facility, partially hoping that she doesn't run into any of the others for the fear of an awkward glance and nothing else.

She almost makes it, she's in the front lobby of the facility even, when Rhodey comes down the hall. She averts her gaze, expecting him to just ignore her, but he surprises her when he stops to speak.

"He's outside, kid." He says simply, full eye contact and all, and she matches it with a small grateful smile.

"Thanks, Rhodey."

It's the most she's said to anyone other than Sam all week. It's progress.

"I still don't agree with what you did, but that tech you developed could really help some people." He says to her, almost sounding proud, as a slight smile comes to his face, "I'm glad you're giving it over to Tony."

She shrugs, trying not to push anything too far, "Yeah, well if anyone can perfect this tech, it's Mr Stark, so..."

Rhodey nods back, going to continue his walk past her. Harper assumes the short exchange to be over, but he surprises her when he stops and places a hand on her shoulder and simply says,

"Good job, kid."

He walks off again and Harper smiles to herself. She thinks things might be good with Rhodey again, meaning she's two for six. It's a start.

She carries on outside, wheeling herself down the ramp to the front driveway. The collector steps out of his car when she gets there, and she almost does a double take when she sees who it is.

"Happy? Never pinned the Head of Security as a delivery boy." She jokes, grinning.

"You're hilarious, kid." He replies sarcastically, though she can tell that he's not as annoyed as he's pretending to be, "You got the stuff?"

"Here." She says, extending the case out to him.

"What is this new little toy of yours anyway?" He asks, eyeing up the case curiously as he takes it from her.

"Mr Stark didn't tell you?"

He shakes his head, "He said it got you in even more trouble than usual, which to me sounded about right."

"The stuff in this briefcase is gonna make it possible for people who are paralyzed to walk again. I figured after I screwed up with it, Mr Stark would be the best person to have it." She explains, and Happy looks stunned.

He probably figured it was just some kind of suit upgrade or something juvenile.

"How much longer are you stuck in the chair?" He asks her, swiftly changing the subject.

"Three weeks at the minimum, but the doctors reckon I might be able to get some mobility back a bit sooner. Just depends on how lucky I get."

The doctor was trying to be an optimist, and whilst she wants to think the same way, she's not exactly liking her odds.

"You're a lucky kid, Harper." Happy tells her, and she furrows her eyebrows, confused by his statement.

"What makes you say that?"

"You're still alive."

That's true. She is still alive, and enhanced or not some of that's got to be down to luck given her circumstances. She hadn't even thought about it like that before, which is ironic considering her mind.

Happy loads the case into the back of his car and moves to the drivers seat, glancing back at her as he gets inside, "Stay out of trouble. I think you're gonna end up killing Natasha and Cap prematurely if you keep this up."

"I'll try, Happy."

* * *

"I'd just like to say thank you, Captain Rogers."

She knows that she shouldn't stop. It's clear that Steve's having a private conversation, even if the door to his office is open, but she can't help it if her enhanced hearing picked it up from all the way down the hall.

So she stops, but she doesn't hide. She's visible from the doorway to his office, so she reckons it won't be long until he notices that she's there and likely tells her to leave.

"If it wasn't for Miss Eddins, the incident on Manhattan Bridge would've ended in tragedy."

She doesn't recognize the voice on the other end, though Steve seems to be listening intently and respectfully, indicating to her that they have to be someone important. Her ears perk up when they mention her name, though Steve's expression remains constant.

"Harper's just happy that she could help." He replies respectfully, "I apologize that the rest of us couldn't be there to help. We had other matters to deal with."

"There's no need to apologize, Captain. Thank you again for your service."

"Thank you, sir."

The call comes to an end then, Steve reclining back into his leather office chair once the line is dead. It's not long before he speaks up again, keeping his eyes fixed on the now blank monitor in front of him.

"That was the Governor of New York. He wanted to thank you for your service on the bridge." He says, "He believes many of his officers would've died if you hadn't stepped in."

She figures he must've noticed her when she first arrived. Either that or he just assumed she'd be waiting.

She's still tentative, keeping herself just outside his office, but then he looks directly at her, a signal that it's okay to come in.

"I'm glad I could help." She replies modestly, slowly wheeling herself inside and coming to a stop not too far from his desk.

"You understand that blatantly ignoring what everyone else tells you isn't a smart move, don't you?"

His tone isn't accusatory but it isn't playful either. It's in the middle, but it beats being yelled at or ignored altogether.

"You'd think it would stop me from doing it." She says, almost jokingly, but then she reels it back in, remembering that she's not exactly in any kind of position to joke. Sighing, she adds with full sincerity, "I am sorry, Steve."

"I know you are, kid." He says, reaching out just like Rhodey and placing her hand on the shoulder, patting it reassuringly. A sign that she's forgiven, "And I know that Rhodey and Sam know it too."

That puts her at three for six, she thinks. Sam, Rhodey, and Steve. Probably the easiest three to tackle.

"What about the others?"

She's not just sorry to some of them, after all. She owes an apology to all of the team.

"I still think you were an asshole."

She turns around, startled by the sight of Wanda casually leaning up against the door frame, arms crossed and lips pursed. She doesn't necessarily look either pissed off or happy, but she hasn't hit her with any powers yet, so Harper knows that not all can be lost.

"Yeah, I deserve that." She admits as Wanda walks into the room, momentarily worried that the former Sokovian could snap and take out some of her anger on her, but then she stops just in front of her, lip slightly quirked up into a small smile.

"But you're still alive, so I guess I forgive you."

Harper sighs in relief and smiles back, "Thanks, Wanda."

"Vis!" Wanda exclaims suddenly, startled as Vision phases into the room from above as if it's nothing, "You know you could just use the door, right?"

"Sorry, Wanda." He says, tone as apologetic as it can be for an android. His eyes flicker between her and Harper, some semblance of confusion settling into his voice, "I was still under the impression that weren't happy with Harper because of what happened. Is that still the case?"

"No." Wanda tells him, glancing between Harper and him assuredly, "We're all good, Vision."

Vision nods and then turns to Harper, looking down at her blankly.

"Then so are we, Harper." He says, "All good, I mean."

"Thanks, Vision." She replies, smiling not only at the fact that she's forgiven, but because of his inherent awkwardness that naturally makes her smile.

She's five for six now, and that leaves just one more person...

"So, now that we're all good, do you guys think you could help me get Nat to forgive me?"

The three of them hesitate, casting silent glances at one another, and it's eventually Vision who speaks up and verbalizes what the three of them are all simultaneously thinking.

"I don't know if I'm capable of that, Harper." He admits, "Natasha is quite...how would you phrase it?"

"She's pissed off. Very pissed off." Wanda finishes, putting it how Vision couldn't and probably more accurately than he would've.

Harper sighs, "What else is new?"

Steve chuckles, nodding to the door, "Go talk to her."

Harper listens, heading for the door and calling back,

"If I'm not back in ten, send an ambulance!"

She hears Steve and Wanda laugh, though she doesn't think they should be. She's not kidding.

* * *

"Hey, Nat. Can we talk?"

She wheels herself into the lounge, finding Nat sat on one of the leather recliners casually. When Nat doesn't respond or even acknowledge her arrival, she considers leaving, because she kinda wants to live to see the end of the day.

But she doesn't leave. She tries again.

"Or I could just talk?"

Nat glances up again, deadpan expression that makes Harper want to run from the room, but she stands her ground.

"Or I could listen? I don't mind." She murmurs sheepishly, and Nat sighs, keeping her expression but at least saying something.

"How are your legs?"

Harper shrugs, tapping her lifeless legs, "Still paralyzed. Call it karma."

"What about the braces?"

"Gave them to Mr Stark. This is only temporary for me, but some people are constantly stuck like this. The tech I developed could really help them." She explains, shrugging. Nat's expression shifts to one of surprise, which Harper takes as a good sign so she keeps going, "Besides, I figured I should start listening to what the adults around me are saying. The doctor told me to rest my legs whilst I heal, so I'm doing it."

"Took you long enough to listen." Nat says bluntly.

"Better late than never." Harper counters, and for a second she expects Nat to glare at her, but she surprisingly doesn't. "Anyways, I came here to apologize. I'm sorry that I keep putting myself in these situations."

"What's your excuse?"

That's what she's been trying to figure out. The truth is that she doesn't and shouldn't have an excuse, but she feels like she's subconsciously been finding one for herself for a long time now.

The truth is that she never dealt with what happened. Not properly. She was too scared and too stubborn to. She'd be lying if she said that her personality didn't become more defiant after it all happen. She started to feel more of an urge to rebel, to be more in control of what she was doing. She just took it too far and used it as something to hide behind, and she thinks that Nat knows that too.

"I don't have one. There isn't one." She admits, tone sincere and honest, and she falters when she struggles to figure out how to put how she's feeling. She doesn't like talking about it, which is part of her problem, but she tries, "I'm not gonna used what happened to me as an excuse for my reckless behavior cause I can't keep hiding behind it. I did the wrong thing, and I'm sorry."

"You mean you did the right thing for the wrong reasons?" Nat asks, tone starting off as somewhat accusatory, but she drops it after a moment, "You promise you'll start listening more?"

"I promise, Nat."

Nat nods, reaching out for a book on the coffee table and beginning to look through it, casually adding, "You're still grounded."

"Nat!"


	24. 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All comments and kudos are appreciated! You guys rock!

**February 23rd, 2016**

Harper bounds into the kitchen cheerfully, having picked up the smell of bacon as soon as she woke up and her stomach rumbling as a result. Still, bacon aside, there's another reason for her upbeat mood. Today's an important day.

"This is it! This is it! This is it!" She cheers excitedly, taking her usual seat between Sam and Wanda at the table, though the former is stood by the oven when she walks in.

"Someone's excited." Natasha remarks from across the table, eyebrow quirked curiously.

"And something tells me it's not for my cooking." Sam remarks, approaching the table with two heaping plates, one filled with bacon and the other with eggs, and placing them in the middle, "I mean, it should be, cause we all know I make the best breakfasts out of anyone on the team."

"You've never tried Wanda's cooking." Steve counters, rolling up the newspaper he was just reading in preparation to eat, "The kid can make a mean omelette."

"It's true." Harper agrees, casting a smile over at Wanda as she flushes red from all of the praise, before looking around at the entire team excitedly, "But you're right. That's not why I'm excited. Today's the big day."

"Right. Your appointment with the doc." Steve says, catching Harper off guard.

She had forgotten about her appointment.

"That's today?" She questions, shaking her head, "No. I'm excited because today I'm finally gonna be up to date with every single episode of The Simpsons."

She says it with gusto, because in her eyes it's quite the impressive feat. There's like 500 episodes of The Simpsons, so it's the kind of show that takes dedication and hard work to finish.

The team seems less impressed.

"Seriously?" Nat says, deadpan, and the others expressions soon match hers.

"Don't look at me like that! It's been a difficult project to complete, you know? There's a lot of episodes!" Harper exclaims, shrinking under their judgemental eyes, "I've only got one left, which I will be watching right after breakfast."

That's the main reason - besides her hunger - that she rushed out of bed for breakfast. The faster she eats, the faster she can get to the screening room and watch the episode.

"You mean right after you go and see the doctor?" Nat says, casting a glance down at the watch on her wrist, "Your appointment's in twenty minutes."

"Do I have to go?" Harper whines.

She really wants to watch The Simpsons, not go to the med bay and see the doctor.

"Do you want to get out of that chair?"

"I might not even be able to, Nat." She counters, glancing over at Steve as she tries to plead her case, "Steve, tell her."

Steve, clearly startled to have been called upon, glancing exasperatedly between the two of them, a smirk coming to Sam's face at the sight.

"Yeah, go on, Steve. Tell her." Sam quips. Steve shoots him a look, which only seems to grow his amusement.

"You need to go, Harper. It won't take long." Steve says decisively after making his decision, "I'm sure it won't take long."

It's not the choice Harper was hoping for. To be fair, she had a feeling Steve would back Nat up on this one, but she was still hoping that he wouldn't.

"You guys are no fun." She says sulkily, crossing her arms and glancing at the two leaders begrudgingly.

"Sorry that we care about your well-being." Nat quips bluntly.

Harper sighs, uncrossing her arms and sitting up straight, "I know you do. And I love you guys for it, but-."

"Aww! Did you say you love us, kiddo?" Sam says teasingly, locking his arm around her neck and tousling her hair playfully, much to her frustration.

"Sam, cut it out!" Harper groans, trying to bat his hands away as he continues to mess around, "Can someone make him stop?"

"Sam!" Nat warns after a few moments, and Sam backs off with his hands raised in mock surrender, settling back down into his seat at the table.

"Alright, Momma Bear! I'm leaving the child alone!"

Nat scoffs, "I'm not old enough to be her mom."

"I thought you were like forty." Harper blurts, instantly regretting it when she sees the way Nat's eyes narrow at her.

"You're grounded."

"Nat!"

"This is nice." Wanda muses suddenly, casually taking sips of her tea as Harper argues with Nat about how she's being unfair.

* * *

Harper reclines back into her wheelchair, Sam and Natasha sat either side of her. The latter was always going to come with her to the appointment. Sam decided last minute that he wanted to come. The doctor already ran all of her tests, and Steve was right, it really didn't take that long.

Waiting on her to get back with the results, on the other hand, is taking quite some time. Surprisingly, it's not Harper who's acting impatiently because of it.

"What's taking her so long?" Sam asks, impatiently taping his right foot on the ground as he sits there, arms crossed.

"You know that you didn't have to come, right?" Natasha says.

"I know that." Sam replies, mumbling the next part, "Just didn't think it'd take her this long."

"He has got a point." Harper says. Nat looks at her with an expression that makes her sink into her wheelchair, and she mumbles, "Just saying."

The doctor comes back into the room then, both Harper and Sam straightening up as she takes a seat opposite them, files in hand. Harper hears two heartbeats pick up and she has to suppress a laugh. They really worry too much.

"Bloods and vitals all came back normal, and your other injuries have fully healed, suggesting that everything's functioning just fine." She explains, and the heartbeats slow back down to a regular pace.

Harper quirks an eyebrow, "Where's the 'but', Doc?"

She knows that there has to be more. It's never that easy.

"You've gained some mobility in your legs, which is incredible considering what happened. Anyone else would be permanently paralyzed."

She's dodging the question, so Harper puts the pieces together herself.

Sighing, she asks, "I still can't fully walk, can I?"

Heartbeats up again, but her own remains calm because she's already anticipating the answer. She's fairly certain she knows what it is before the doc confirms it.

"I don't think you'll need another month. Another week, tops." She explains, tone optimistic yet informative. Placing the file down on the desk to her side, she adds, "Good news is that we can move you onto crutches. If you want, that is."

If she wants. She's been given a choice, a chance to be more mobile, something she would've loved no less than a few weeks ago. She would've jumped at the chance when she first got stuck in the chair, but now she's not so sure.

"I'll stay in the chair, if that's okay." She decides after a brief moment of thought, surprising the three adults in the room.

"You will?"

Nat looks at her questioningly, "Are you sure, Harper?"

She understands her confusion, given her previous insistence and desperation to get out of the chair. But she knows that this is the best thing to do.

"Yeah. It's only another week, right? I wanna be in top form again after this all blows over, so I might as well rest these things for as long as I can before then." She explains, shrugging. She looks between Nat and Sam, asking, "That okay, guys?"

They both look stunned still. It's almost comical, their expressions.

"Yeah." Nat says, breaking out of her astonishment to give a response, "Of course it is."

She smiles gratefully at the woman before turning to Sam, who shrugs and adds, "Whatever you want, kid."

"So it's settled. One more week and I'm out of this chair and back to normal." Harper says happily, turning back to the doctor with a smile, "Thanks for your help, Doc. Am I good to go?"

"Yeah. You're all good." She replies, shrugging off her own astonishment.

Harper thanks the doctor again and then asks Nat and Sam if they're gonna come with her to catch the final episode.

"We'll catch up, kiddo." Sam tells her, nodding to the door, "Go and watch it."

She nods, moving her chair out from between her seats before wheeling out of the room at top speed, the screening room her goal. Nat and Sam hang back like they said they would, the two exchanging confused glances as the latter asks.

"Is that the same kid?"

Nat nods, "Yeah. Same kid."

She had expected Harper to be resistant when the doctor said she wouldn't be able to walk properly for another week. She had expected her to jump at the chance of moving onto crutches. She hadn't expected her to be more concerned with watching The Simpsons than walking again. To say that Harper's surprised her would be an understatement.

"She's not a bad one." The doctor admits, jokingly adding, "Bit too stubborn for her own good sometimes, though."

"Gets that from old Mom over here." Sam teases, nodding casually over at Nat. The doctor has to suppress a laugh when she sees the look the former spy shoots her teammate.

"Will you stop calling me that?"

"You took that kid in!" Sam declares, rising from his chair and heading out of the room as Natasha glares at him, "She's your responsibility!"

"You took her in too! What does that make you?"

"The fun Uncle!"

Nat rolls her eyes, though it sounds about right (not that she'd admit that to any of them).


	25. 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your comments and kudos guys! They inspire me to keep writing! You guys are amazing! Hope everyone is well and safe :)

**March 8th, 2016**

Turns out the doctor was right when she said it would only be a week. She was cleared yesterday, finally able to get out of the chair and walk around again like she used to. She really, really missed walking, but on the bright side she doubts that she'll ever take it for granted again. Flying's also back on the cards - she tested it out yesterday afternoon after she got her bearings back again by racing Sam around the grounds of the facility.

She won, no teleportation involved, though Sam's been telling the others that she cheated. She thinks he's just desperate to beat her at something. First it was bowling, and now it's flying.

Harper strolls into the training area with Nat the next morning, most of the others already in there ready to begin, and she has to resist the urge to rush in and completely lose herself in the training. She never thought that she'd miss it so much, but here she is.

"Just make sure you take it easy, okay? The doctor only cleared you yesterday and you haven't trained in over a month." Nat reminds her, clearly sensing the urge that she's trying to suppress,"You don't want to end up in that chair again."

She most definitely doesn't, but she doubts that training will be what causes it if she ever does. That's clearly not enough to stop Nat from worrying. Nothing ever is.

"Don't worry, Nat. My legs are all good. See?" Harper replies, playfully dancing around briefly to illustrate her point, "Besides, you guys paired me up with Wanda, and hand-to-hand combat isn't exactly her strong suit because it doesn't need to be. The girl can move stuff with her mind."

"Hey! Don't underestimate her!" Sam warns, approaching the two of them from behind and giving Harper a cautionary glance, "She's stronger than she looks!"

"I'm not. I know she could kick my ass, believe me." She replies, watching Wanda flings projectiles at some targets along the far wall as she warms up. The sight makes her gulp, "I mean, she won't, right?"

"She won't." Nat replies. She goes to join the others in warming after, leaving Harper and Sam stood by the door, neither of them really liking their odds.

"Any chance you want to switch sparring partners?" Sam asks, tone somewhat desperate, and Harper looks at him skeptically.

"Who you got?"

He points to his partner and Harper decisively shakes her head, knowing that there's not a chance she's gonna swap, "Nope. Not a chance."

"Oh, come on! She's not gonna lay a finger on you and you know it!" Sam protests.

"I know, which is why I don't us sparring is gonna be beneficial for either of us. I think our enemies are gonna be confused when instead of striking them we're striking the air around them."

The point of practicing hand to hand combat is so they have a backup in case something goes wrong with their powers and/or tech. Steve and Nat always say that it's more important than training their powers, and Harper somewhat agrees.

"You'd really rather take on Wanda instead of Nat?"

She chuckles, "I'd rather take on neither of them, but we haven't exactly got a choice."

* * *

Turns out she should've done the swap. She concludes that as her and Sam limp into the lounge area, both of them wincing with each step. They ease themselves down onto one of the long leather couches, both of them groaning in pain as they sit, their muscles crying at the movement.

"Next time, you take Wanda." Harper says, grimacing as she moves her arm to rest over her aching abdomen, "I've got Nat."

"Maybe we rig it next time so we're sparring against each other." Sam suggests through a grimace of his own, and Harper instantly likes his idea a lot more.

"Deal."

It's hard to tell who got their ass kicked more - her or Sam. Of course, Wanda was the only opponent with superpowers, but Nat sure can put up a fight.

"That hurt like a bitch!"

Harper laughs, instantly regretting it when her stomach aches, "I know the feeling."

"At least you can heal. I'm gonna be stuck feeling like this for days."

That's true. Now that her leg's all sorted, her healing should be back to its old capacity. Admittedly, she still hasn't cracked making it work on command. She thinks that's gonna be one of the things she never figures out with her powers, not that the rest of it is that hard to figure out. Maybe super senses, but the rest is pretty simple.

"Since when did Wanda get so strong, anyway?" She asks, groaning as more pain shoots through at her slight movements.

Sam was right when he said to not underestimate her. Wanda surprised her with how good she's gotten at hand to hand combat. Her powers are arguably the strongest out of all of theirs (not that Harper would ever admit that) so she doubts she'll ever have to use it, but she can definitely hold her own.

"Since I got off my ass and put in the time." Wanda quips as she strolls into the lounge, passing by them on her way to the kitchen.

"Hey! I would've done the same if I wasn't stuck in that chair and you know it!" Harper protests, not daring to glance back to look at Wanda as she moves out of sight, knowing how it'll end up if she does, "As soon as my body doesn't ache all over, we'll have a rematch."

"So, tomorrow?"

"Right after lunch." Harper determines, adding when Sam looks at her, puzzled, "I fight better on a full stomach."

"Sure you do."

Harper narrows her eyes even though Wanda can't see her, yelling, "I'd blast you with a lazer if I wasn't so nice, you know?!"

"Mhm." Wanda muses, completely unperturbed, and Harper goes to argue but she hears the former Sokovian leave the room so she gives up.

"How are you feeling, anyway?" Sam asks, "Now that you're back on your feet again."

"Weird, but also good. It's nice to not have to be so reliant anymore." Harper responds. She's liked the returned sense of freedom, though it's been a bit strange to adjust to given how long she went without it. It's good though, for sure, "Plus I got lucky with recovery. I could still be in the chair."

"You're a lucky kid."

"I know." She replies, "Everyone keeps telling me that."

That's all that she keeps hearing. She's lucky to be alive. She's lucky to be able to walk. It's probably all true.

"Harper, Sam. Is everything alright?" Vision asks, startling the two of them as he phases into the room from above, his tone expressing the amount of concern possible for an android, "You both seem distressed."

"They got their asses handed to them!" Wanda calls, presumably from the kitchen, and Harper fruitlessly narrows her eyes for a second time.

"Shut up, Wanda!"

Vision doesn't laugh (not that either of them had expected him to, being an android and all), and he instead continues to look at them blankly, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Grab a bag of peas?"

Harper likes Sam's suggestion. A bag of peas, or multiple for that matter, sounds ideal right about now. Vision seems somewhat puzzled by the suggestion, but he seems even more confused when two bags of peas float into the room, red wisps surrounding them, and fall down into Harper and Sam's laps, the two of them groaning in pain from the force.

"Oh, god!" Sam hisses, and Harper knows exactly how he feels.

She also knows exactly who did it, and she narrows her eyes at her for the third time despite the fact that she can't see her face.

"I'm telling Nat and Steve!"

She's decided that she's never sparring against Wanda ever again.


	26. 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter for you guys! Thanks so much for all your comments and kudos. They really do inspire me to keep writing!
> 
> I want to try and be more interactive in the comments. I feel like right now with everything going on in the world, we all need a little bit of community and interaction, and though it's not much I'd love to help out with that! I'm gonna make sure to reply all comments from now on :)!
> 
> I hope everyone's safe and well, and I hope you guys enjoy the chapter!

**March 22nd, 2016**

It's mid afternoon. The forecast said that it'd be sunny out. Turns out they were wrong, because Harper's been up since seven A.M. and it hasn't stopped raining since. She had the intention of going outside for the day - for a fly, naturally, but she had even considered trying to talk the others into having a BBQ. She doubted she'd be able to convince any of them given the weather and Wanda, who caught her wondering around the facility bored out of her wits, offered to spend the day with her instead.

They're both sat in the former Sokovian's room, Wanda on her bed and Harper on the armchair to the side of the bed, both of them with a guitar in hand. The former gifted one to Harper last year on her birthday, but she never got the chance to learn how to play it because of everything that happened. She's glad that she has it on a rainy day like today.

"So, like this?" Harper murmurs, brows furrowed as she concentrates intensely on where her hands are placed along the frets, trying to mimic what her teammate just showed her.

"Not quite." Wanda says, leaning forward and correctly Harper's placement before settling back, repositioning her own hands to where they were before, "Now try it."

She tries it, bringing her hand down against the strings, except she underestimated how flimsy they'd be. Either that or she forgot to keep her strength in check. The strings break as soon as she makes contact, pieces flinging from the instrument onto the floor.

"The one time having super strength is a disadvantage." Harper groans, looking at the broken instrument frustratedly before casting a glance over at Wanda, "Please tell me you have-."

A bag of guitar strings float onto her lap before she can even finish, the red mist fading from around the package once it lands, and Harper quirks an eyebrow at Wanda, "How'd you know we'd need them?"

"Because it's you."

Harper narrows her eyes, tone sarcastic though lacking any malice, "Thanks, Wanda."

Wanda smirks and Harper rolls her eyes good-naturedly, casting her eyes to the TV at the side of the room they chose to keep on as background noise, when she notices a familiar logo appear on the screen.

WHIH Newsfront. It's a part of WHiH World News. She recognizes it because they were the ones reporting on her after the museum incident.

"Have you seen this?" She asks glancing back at Wanda, who shakes her head. Harper reaches for the remote, turning up the volume just as the main report starts.

Two news anchors appear on the screen - one a familiar looking blonde woman, the other a man who honestly looks as though he wants to be anywhere else but there.

"I'm Christine Everhart. This week on a special edition of Newsprint: the world the hero leaves behind. What is the final cost of intervention from groups like The Avengers? Who do they answer to in the wake of their actions?"

Harper concludes that she doesn't like this Christine woman from the get-go. She's asking questions that have two answers, but the way she's saying them is framing them up to the more negative perspective.

Turning to her co-anchor, she adds in a standard news anchor voice, "Joining me on the program is political correspondent, Will Adams. Thank you for being here, Will."

"Thank you for having me-." He begins, responding in a similar tone, but his co-anchor doesn't let him get very far.

"Are you scared?"

"No!" He replies, "No, we're friends and uh...friends who disagree, so this is gonna be interesting."

"Let's get at it!" Christine says hastily, swiftly moving onto the subject of the broadcast.

Footage begins to flash up on the screen alongside her face. Photos of them. The original team in New York, some shots of Steve and the others in D.C., a couple even from Sokovia.

"Our super-powered advocates have intervened time and time again in international incidents to great effect. But who accounts for the devastation they leave behind?"

Harper scoffs, "She should try and take down an army of killer androids without causing any damage."

It seems to Harper that this woman is less trying to question them and more trying to accuse them. Her co-anchor, on the other hand, takes the opposite approach.

"Well, the question for me, Christine, isn't if, or even should our heroes be allowed to operate independently, it's why shouldn't they?" He counters, laughing to himself slightly as he talks. Perhaps laughing at her perspective.

"I like him." Wanda concludes.

Harper smirks, eyes remaining on the screen, "Me too."

"Discoveries are still being made in the massive cache of classified material released by former S.H.I.E.L.D agent, Natasha Romanoff. The leak clearly details how the organization known as H.Y.D.R.A was able to infiltrate the highest ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D and had organized a massive conspiracy on the civilian population. Romanoff's actions, independent from oversight, saved us from what could've been a catastrophic outcome had H.Y.D.R.A been able to remain undiscovered."

She's never asked Nat and the others about D.C. too much. She's never felt that it's her place to. She found out some stuff from files (they're really not as encrypted as some people like to believe) and reports, but she's never heard any direct accounts.

This guy seems to be grateful for what happened, but his co-anchor persists in her pessimism towards them, "Romanoff's actions, along with the actions of Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, among others, over the years may have been admirable-."

"Their actions saved hundreds of thousands of people!"

"But that's not the question. We're talking about the collateral damage." She counters, quickly regaining her composure and looking into the camera again as footage begins to flash up again, "This week in our ongoing special report, we'll look back on the events in New York, D.C., Sokovia, asking you, the viewer: if growing concern from around the world should see The Avengers submit to international oversight, or if they should remain free to act independent from government regulation."

They include a mixture of footage, though this time it's more impactful. What sticks out to Harper is the images of parts of Sokovia crumbling to rubble. Of children running and screaming for their parents as the androids around them show them no mercy.

Harper reaches for the remote again and switches it off before either of them can see anymore.

"I don't like her." Wanda concludes after a moment of silence, and a ghost of a smile crosses Harper's face at her bluntness.

"Neither." She agrees, turning away from the screen to look at her friend. She looks okay, though Harper picks up on the slight haunted tinge to her eyes, "You okay?"

Wanda nods back, eyes remaining fixed on the guitar in her hands, and Harper sighs, tone apologetic.

"I should've turned it off sooner."

"I would've turned it back on." Wanda replies, shrugging. She glances up from the guitar, eyes full of sincerity and raw, "No use pretending like it didn't happen."

She knows that Wanda's got a point, but sometimes she wishes that they could just forget about it all. All they can really do is try to move on, which is a constant battle in and of itself.

"You reckon you could teach me the rest of the song?"

That and try to establish a sense of normality. That's sometimes even harder.

* * *

"Hey, Pete. How you been?" Harper asks with a smile, relaxing back into the chair by her desk as Peter's smiling face appears on the monitor, casually enjoying the food she picked up for herself for dinner.

She was going to eat food with the team, but she could hear Sam yelling at the oven and that was when she decided to pass. Besides, it's really not that hard to get ahold of food when you can teleport and fly.

He shrugs, saying, "I think I nailed my pop quiz today."

"That's one of the reasons I'm glad I was homeschooled. Never had to take a pop quiz." Harper admits with a chuckle. There's some aspects about normal school that she's glad to have missed, but pop quizzes sure aren't one of them, "What was it on?"

"The physics of Thor."

Harper almost does a double take. She never covered the physics of Thor when she was being homeschooled, though in hindsight now that makes sense. She gets that The Avengers, her included, are well known around the world, but she didn't realise that was to the point of being taught in classes.

"Seriously?" She says, surprised, "You guys learn about Thor in class?"

"We learn about all of you guys." Peter shrugs, saying it as if it's nothing, "I think we're actually covering you next."

That's kinda cool, and admittedly kinda strange too. She never thought that she'd be the topic of a physics class. She never thought that half of this stuff would happen to her, but here she is.

"Well, if you've got any questions, fire away. Guarantee I'll be able to help you get your G.P.A up."

She knows Peter's smart, but it's not like she's ever gonna use her brain at school. Someone else might as well borrow parts of it.

"Thanks, Harper." Peter replies gratefully. He finally notices the bag of food in her hands, seeming intrigued and somewhat jealous, "Are you eating Prachya Thai?"

"Sure am." She replies, "Took a while to order it though. The guy at the counter wanted a picture with me. It was super weird."

She was beyond baffled when he asked to take a picture with her. His face lit up when she entered the store, and it wasn't long before he was hesitantly asking to take a picture with her. Of course she said 'yes'. It was kinda nice - it gave her reassurance that what Christine Everhart was saying on the news doesn't reflect the views of at least some of the general public.

"You are kinda famous. All of you are." Peter responds, "I'm surprised they haven't made a movie about you guys yet."

Now, Harper's heard and seen some bizarre things in her time, perhaps more so than most, but an Avengers move perhaps has to be one of the weirdest out of the lot. It makes her feel odd even thinking about it.

"Imagine that! An Avengers movie? I don't know if people would go and watch that."

"I don't know. I think it could be as popular as Star Wars."

"I still haven't watched all of Star Wars, you know. I still need to watch the Empire Strikes Back." She admits, stifling a laugh when she sees Peter's aghast expression, "Don't look at me like that, Pete!"

"That's like the best one out of the old ones! You have to watch it!" He insists, his inner nerd bursting out in droves, and Harper chuckles and raises her hands in mock surrender.

"I promise that I will." She says, lowering her hands and going back to her food.

"What's it like being able to walk again?" Peter asks, tone curious. Harper places the food down on the desk in front of her, shrugging.

"It's good. Really good, actually. Makes me realize how much I took it for granted before, you know?" She says honestly. She hadn't realised how much she appreciated the ability to walk until she couldn't, "Plus, I had the time to binge all of The Simpsons whilst I was stuck in the chair, so that's a bonus."

"Why didn't you watch the Empire Strikes Back?"

"What?" She protests with a laugh, "There's a lot of episodes! I didn't have the time!"

"Peter, food's ready!"

Peter recognizes the female voice calling out to him from what sounds like another room (Harper thinks it must be his Aunt May) and responds hastily.

"Coming, May!" He calls out to the closed door before turning back to the screen, an excited expression on his face, "I gotta go! May made burgers!"

"See ya later, Pete."

She reaches for her food again once the call cuts out, relaxing in the silence of the room with a content sigh. She loves being in the facility, being around the team, but sometimes she likes her own peace and quiet.

She doesn't even get half way through her food before that peace and quiet is lost, the treehouse A.I announcing in a robotic voice, "Agent Romanoff is approaching."

"On foot?"

"In a vehicle."

Harper shrugs. It makes sense. It's quite the trek.

"Let her up when she gets here." She says, then adding as an afterthought, "You know what? Just give her security clearance from now on."

"Security clearance verified for Miss Romanoff."

A few minutes pass before she hears the mechanical doors sliding open behind her. She turns around in her chair, smirking between mouthfuls of food, "Took you long enough."

"Not all of us can fly or teleport." Nat quips back, entering the room and standing by the desk, leaning casually up against it. "Wanda told me about what the two of you were watching earlier."

"The news report?" Harper questions, eyebrow quirked curiously when she recognizes the older woman's concerned expression, reassuring her, "I'm not bothered by it, if that's what you're worried about. That Christine Everhart doesn't know what she's talking about."

That's not entirely a lie. She's really not that bothered by it, but she'd be lying if she didn't say she hadn't thought about it more than once since watching the report. Still, everything's just fine.

"I just wanted to make sure that you were okay."

Harper chuckles at her seriousness, "You know you could've just called me, right? I've got a phone."

"You've been gone for a few hours."

Her smirk drops. She knows what this is about. It's not even really about the report. She softens, holding out the bag in her hand as an offering, smiling, "Thai?"

"Where'd you get this from?" Nat asks, serious expression molding into one of confusion before realization hits. She narrows her eyes in an accusatory manner, "Did you go into the city again?"

"No..."

"You're grounded."

She knew she'd say that.

"You can't keep grounding me!" Harper whines. She's sick of getting ground. How can you even ground someone who can fly?

Nat shrugs, completely unperturbed, as she heads for the door, "Who says I can't?"

"The Human Rights Act of 1998!" Harper protests, jumping out of her chair, food in hand, when Nat ignores her protests, "Nat! That's not fair!"


	27. 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for leaving comments and kudos guys! Interacting with you lights up my day!
> 
> Enjoy this chapter :)!

**April 1st, 2016**

It's the day Harper's been waiting for - April Fools. She's always wanted to have a proper April fools day, but she never really got the chance to when she was younger. Her parents weren't exactly fans of pranks, and even if they were she didn't exactly have the equipment to pull off the kinds of cool pranks you only see in TV shows.

You know, the kinds of pranks that you want to pull off but don't really know how to? She always says that being an Avenger has its positives and drawbacks, one of those positives being that she's in a facility with a bunch of other people. That gives her a lot of potential targets for pranks.

"You think this is gonna work?" Sam asks. The two of them are hiding behind the wall leading into the adjacent hallway, waiting patiently for their target to stumble upon their little trap. Harper was gonna pull off the prank on her own - she could've pulled it off - but where's the fun in that? She explained her plans to Sam and he was on board in an instant, especially when she told him who the target was.

"If my calculations were correct, it should." Harper replies, eyes remaining fixed on the hall, waiting for Steve to head into his office. She figured he was the perfect target. Sam agreed.

"And what are the chances of your calculations being wrong?"

She shrugs, "Like .2%."

"Aren't you supposed to be like the smartest person on the planet?" Sam questions, looking down at her incredulously, clearly having expected a different answer. Harper looks back at him, smirking.

"Only when I try to be." She remarks, shrugging and fixing her attention back on the office door, "Besides, there's always a margin of error. It's unavoidable."

"How do you know?"

"Cause I tried to avoid it before."

Even for someone with enhanced intelligence, the fact the error is still possible is inescapable. If it was, half of the problems that they've had could've been avoided.

"Someone's coming." Sam says giddily, the sound of footsteps approaching ringing through the silent hallway, and Harper pauses, listening intently to them.

She knows Steve's footsteps. He carries a lot of weight. When he tries, he can make his footsteps light, but ordinarily they're not.

"That's not Steve." She murmurs, realization hitting her, and Sam looks at her quizzically.

"How do you know?"

"Footsteps are too light."

Her suspicions are correct. It's not Steve. Either that or Steve now has long black hair and wears heels.

The trap executes itself before either of them can intervene. Hill tries to enter the office, a leather file holder in hand, and trips the wire that starts the trap. The bucket tips moments after the force hits the wire, dousing the agent in thick green sludge. It's harmless sludge, but it doesn't stop Hill from glaring around murderously after it hits her.

She spots them, eyes full of controlled rage, and Harper can't tell if it's her heart or Sam's that's beating like a chorus of drums.

Probably both.

* * *

They trail after Hill, both of them desperately trying to stifle their laughter as green sludge drops around her after each step, leaving a trail in her wake. Harper's only following her because she's genuinely convinced that the agent could and would turn around and shoot her in the foot if she didn't. She can tell that Sam's got the same thought process.

"You can teleport us out of this one, right?" Sam murmurs. Harper glances at him, smirking when she notices the fear on his face, and he narrows his eyes at her, "Don't smirk, kid! You and I both know what will happen when she tells you know who!"

He's got a point. Her smirk falls, and she genuinely considers making a break for it, but then they round the corner and find the two of them stood there. Neither of them seem amused.

"What happened to you?" Natasha asks, taking in Hill's new look before looking past them, seemingly putting two and two together when she narrows her eyes at Harper and Sam.

Teleporting away is starting to sound like a good idea.

Hill groans frustratedly, clearly trying to keep her composure as she grips her file holder so tightly that her knuckles turn white, "I was trying to drop those files that you asked for into your office when these two did this."

Steve looks past Hill like Nat, his sights narrowing in on Sam in particular, "Sam! Seriously?"

"What?" Sam responds, pointing over at Harper, "She roped me into this!"

She would argue with him, but technically it's not a lie. Both Steve and Nat focus their sights in on her, and she shrugs back, "Well it wouldn't have been any fun if I did it on my own!"

Neither of them look impressed or amused, which is the reaction she was expecting but not the one she was hoping for.

"I'm sorry, Hill. It won't happen again." Nat says sincerely, glancing at the frustrated agent apologetically, "Feel free to use any of the private facilities to sort yourself out. Sam will show you the way."

"I will?" Sam says, surprised. Nat shoots a look his way and his tone shifts, silently leading Hill out of the room and to the private quarters. Harper doesn't miss the way she glares at the back of his head on her way out.

With Sam and Hill gone, Steve and Nat's sights focus in on her, the latter looking pissed whilst the former looks disappointed. Harper chuckles nervously, hands raised in mock surrender as she tries to ignore the thought of teleporting out of the room.

God knows what trouble she'd be in after they caught her again.

"Before you guys yell at me, just remember that it's April Fools." She tries, glancing over at Steve. Might as well try and appeal to the 'good Cop' of the two, "And I know you guys had it back in the 40s so you can't pretend you don't know what it is."

"That prank was meant for me, wasn't it?" Steve asks simply, arms crossed.

"Well, I wasn't going to prank Nat because I wanted to live to see another day, and Vision could've just phased out of it, and Rhodey isn't even here so..." She explains, trying to justify her choices. She knows that Nat's not buying it, but she can't actually tell with Steve. He probably isn't, "And you both know what Wanda could do to me if I pranked her."

"So you thought you'd try and get me instead?"

"Pretty much."

Steve sighs, looking to Natasha, "Nat?"

The former spy surprises them both by backing down, crossing the room to grab a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, "This one's your call, Rogers. That prank was meant for you."

Steve seems flustered by the responsibility, casting a pleading look in Nat's direction that goes totally ignored. He sighs exasperatedly before making his decision, "Go and clean up the mess you made and then you can go to your room."

"But I can't clean up all of that on my own!"

He sighs again, adding, "You can get Sam to help you, okay?"

Harper grins broadly, surprised that she got off that easy but not about to question it. She thanks him before rushing out of the room the way she came in, and Natasha turns to Steve and gives him a pointed look.

"What?"

"Remind me to never let you handle discipline with her again." Nat scoffs, closing the refrigerator door with a bottle in hand, "She's got you wrapped around her finger and she knows it. You let her walk all over you."

"He must be taking a page out of your book." Sam quips, strolling back into the room without Hill by his side this time.

"Shut it, Wilson!" Nat warns, eyes narrowed. She nods in the direction that Harper left in, "Go help clean up the mess you made."

Sam holds his hands up, turning away with a smirk on his face, "Whatever you say, Momma Bear."

"Who's the pushover again?" Steve asks.

"He made that mess too."

"Mhm." Steve muses as he heads for the door, casually adding, "You handle discipline next time."

* * *

"No, I am your Father."

"No way!" Harper gasps, the popcorn pieces in her hand falling back into the bag as she watches the screen in front of her, mouth agape, "That's impossible!"

She's finally gotten around to watching the Empire Strikes Back. She negotiated with Steve and she managed to convince him to let her watch it in the lounge. She could've watched it in her room, but she wanted to be close to a source of snacks. She's already on her third bag of popcorn.

She had expected the film to be interesting, but she hadn't expected the twist. Darth Vader is Luke's father? She can't believe it.

"Nat, did you know that Darth Vader was actually Luke's father?" She asks as the red-haired woman strolls into the room, eyes flickering between her and the screen as Luke screams at Vader.

"I think everyone knew, Harper." Nat replies, pausing and looking at her quizzically, "Aren't you supposed to be in your room?"

"Steve said it was cool." Harper responds, "And surely everyone didn't know."

"I knew." Wanda remarks, strolling past the two of them from her way back from the kitchen, and Harper sighs defeatedly and concedes.

"Yeah, everyone knew."

She's really out of the loop, huh? She can't wait to talk to Peter about it all. She'll be interested to hear his perspective on the twist.

"You cleaned up the mess you made earlier, didn't you?" Nat asks, reaching for the remote and pausing the film. Harper's not bothered by it. She doesn't want to miss any of it anyway.

"Sam helped." She replies, adding, "And I apologized to Hill. Still don't think she's happy with me, though. I can never tell with her."

She was scared to approach Hill after what happened, but she knew that if she didn't, Steve and Nat would've had her apologize anyway.

"No more pranks then?"

"No more. There's always next year." Harper confirms before nodding to the space on the couch beside her with a smile, "Come and watch the rest of the film with me. I wanna see how this pans out."

Harper figures that Nat will say that she's busy, but she surprises her when she agrees. Harper tries to hide her smirk as she takes a seat, but she bursts into laughter when a loud farting noise goes off in the room as she does.

Nat stands up briefly, pulling out the deflated whoopee cushion and looking at Harper with a deadpan expression, "No more pranks, huh?"

Harper shrugs, grinning, "You can't go wrong with a whoopee cushion, Nat."


	28. 28

**April 17th, 2016**

Harper jerks awake, a scream wrenching its way out of her throat. She looks around frantically in the dark, hardly noticing the light that's flickering on and off in her hands. She looks and sounds like she's ran a marathon, and her heart is thumping so loud in her ears that she feels like her head's gonna explode.

More light floods the room and stays there. She shakes fiercely against Nat as she pulls her into her arms, burying her shaking frame into the older woman's side, her clammy forehead leaning against her shoulder limply.

"You're okay. I've got you." Nat shushes, running her hands through the matted mess of hair as she softly shushes her.

The normal routine.

She eventually calms down. The same as always. She stands up and crosses the room to her desk, taking a sip from a glass of water she left there earlier. It's disgusting, but it beats the dry feeling from before.

"That's a new record. Seventeen days." She remarks, placing the glass back down and slumping into the chair at the side of the room, "I was pushing for eighteen though."

Seventeen days of no nightmares. She thought that it was getting better. That she was beginning to cope.

"You wanna talk about it?" Nat asks. Harper shakes her head and she sighs, "You don't have to talk to me, you know? Or Steve. Or Sam. Or Wanda."

"I'm not an idiot, Nat. I know where this is going." Harper replies, "And my answer's still the same. I'm not doing it."

She knows what Nat's implying. She's brought it up before, and her answer was definitively a 'no'. She hasn't changed her mind since then.

"You agreed to the evaluation."

"And all it told me was what I already knew." Harper scoffs, "It didn't exactly take a genius to figure out I've got it, Nat. I've probably had it since my parents were killed."

PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's kinda obvious when you put all of the pieces together. Seeing the bodies of your dead parents, fighting on a flying city, being abducted and experimented on like a lab rat, finding out your whole life has been a lie. All of it does a number on a person and not just physically.

"Who told you that?" Nat asks, tone completely non-judgemental.

"The doctor. And my own common sense." Harper murmurs, glancing down at her hands and curiously watching the light flicker between the two of them. A familiar sight, "I was showing symptoms from the start. You remember? You found me that night in the kitchen."

She knows Nat remembers. She sighs, saying softly, "I know it doesn't feel like it, but talking will help."

"I do talk." Harper says adamantly, glancing up from her hands with full sincerity, "I talk to you, and Steve, and Sam, and Wanda. Even to Vision or Rhodey occasionally."

"But we aren't qualified. We can't help you like-."

"Like a therapist can?" Harper scoffs. She rises from her chair and moves to the window, looking out at the blackness of the dimly lit grounds of the facility. She laughs, "After everything that's happened, you still think the solution is a shrink?"

"Not entirely, but I think it will help." Nat says honestly. That's been her reasoning every time. She's convinced that seeing a therapist is gonna make things better. Harper just can't understand her thought process, "You trust me?"

It's not the kind of question she needs to think about. She knows her answer.

"I trust all of you. That's why I feel comfortable talking about this stuff with you guys. Not so random doctor wondering in off of the streets." She says, and noticing the look that Nat gives her, she groans, "Don't say it! I know they won't actually be wondering in off the streets or anything!"

"That's not what I was gonna say." Nat remarks simply.

"That's surprising."

"I was gonna say okay."

Harper turns back to her, eyebrow quirked in surprise, "Okay?"

"Okay." Nat nods, "If you don't want to go to a therapist, then that's okay."

Harper listens to her heart beat. There's no shift. She's not lying.

She wakes up early the next morning, having not gotten much sleep after being forced awake. She never does after it happens. She changes into training gear and heads downstairs to the training area, specifically the target range. Technically today's an off day, and even if it wasn't Nat and Steve rarely have her train the day after it happens even when she insists that she's perfectly fine even if she's not.

She's been meaning to practise shooting her light projectiles. Light has lots of applications - she's mastered light weapon generation, and general ray blasts are pretty simple too. The projectiles are hit or miss. She's trying to eradicate the latter.

She's down there for about twenty minutes, thirty at most, when she hears a voice behind her, the sound of which startling her so much that she fires another projectile on impulse. It surprisingly hits the target.

"I think your shots are getting more accurate than Clint's." Wanda says, leaning casually up against the wall, still dressed in pajamas and a long robe. She's not down here to train.

"Still can't fire a bow and arrow." Harper replies, moving over to the control panel for the targets and resetting them all with a simple click of a button, "I think he thought I'd shoot myself in the foot if he taught me."

"Aren't your reflexes enhanced?"

Harper laughs, glancing up at the other girl, "Yep. He just doesn't trust me."

Wanda smiles slightly too. Harper moves back to her starting position and begins firing off at the targets again.

"I heard you again last night. It's been a while." Wanda says, words barely audible over the blasts.

"Seventeen days." Harper grunts, watching in frustration as she misses the last of the targets. She moves back towards the panel again, "I thought it was getting better. Guess I was wrong."

"It will."

"That's what Nat said." Harper says. She resets the targets again and moves back again, "I've looked into it. There's drugs for it, but they're meant for adults."

"There are other solutions."

Harper stops firing, turning to Wanda with a slight accusatory tone, asking, "Did Nat put you up to this?"

"No." Wanda replies, shaking her head, "I haven't even seen her today."

Harper listens. No heart beat change.

She turns back towards the target, firing off again, "I've read about them. EMDR, CBT, standard therapy. None of them really appeal to me."

She's done her research. She knows some of the therapies available for people like her. She knows that they work for some people, but she doesn't know if they'd work for her.

"They might if you give them a chance."

She's almost certain that Wanda must've been put up to this. Sighing, she moves back to the panel, ready to reset the panels again. Her aim is getting better each time, which is a positive, "I don't know about that, Wanda."

"It helped me. After Sokovia." Wanda admits, adding after a moment of hesitation, "After Pietro."

Harper stills, her hand hovering above the panel. She turns to Wanda, expression soft and voice calm, "Why'd you never say anything about going to therapy?"

She had no idea that Wanda had gone to see a therapist. Maybe she should've expected it - she's been through as much trauma as the rest of them, arguably. Losing her parents and home, being HYDRA's experiment, losing her brother.

"Steve said I didn't have to." Wanda shrugs. That makes sense to Harper. They all help each other out, but naturally some of them are closer than others. She's noticed that Steve is to Wanda as Nat is to her. She just never realized to what extent that was, "I'd see her twice a week. Sometimes she'd come here, and sometimes I'd go to her."

"Did it help?"

"Eventually." Wanda admits, relaxing her arms and pushing off from the wall to come closer, "It made me feel less alone."

"But I'm not alone." Harper counters. She knows that she hasn't been alone for a long time. Not since she got her new family, "I have you and the rest of the team. And I've got Mr Stark. And Clint. And-."

She almost mentions Peter, because she does have him too. She has someone to rely on outside of the team. She has a friend with a shared understanding, something's that's hard to come by for someone in her position. In any of their positions, for that matter.

Thankfully, Wanda doesn't notice her almost slip-up.

"And we're not going anywhere. It's just that there's nothing wrong with some outside help." Wanda reassures her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. It's not a common gesture for Wanda, something more akin to what Steve or Nat or Sam would do. She must be picking it up from them.

She understands what Wanda's getting at. She's been running from the idea of therapy for multiple reasons, but Wanda didn't run. She didn't run like her.

* * *

"I'll do it. Therapy."

Nat and Steve both look up at her from the monitors they're both looking at, clearly startled by her sudden declaration. To be fair, she did just rush into the control room and tell them out of the blue, but she knew that if she waited she probably would've ended up changing her mind.

"Therapy?" Nat questions, glancing over at Steve briefly who looks just as baffled, "I thought you were against the idea."

"I was." Harper replies, pausing and correcting herself, "I am."

"What changed?"

Harper shrugs, "I still think it's a stupid idea, but I've had stupid ideas before and I've still carried them out, so..."

"When do you want to start?" Steve asks, momentarily snapping out of his shock.

"Whenever." She replies, but then she stops and rewinds, "Actually, not tomorrow. I'm binging all seven Harry Potter Films, so tomorrow doesn't really work for me."

Steve and Nat both nod, neither of them clearly entirely sure of what to say. Steve's the first to correct himself, turning back to the girl with a sincere expression.

"I'll look into setting up an appointment within the week." He says, and Harper nods back. That works for her. "We're proud of you, Harper." Steve adds, proud smile edging its way onto his face, and Harper knows what's coming so she turns and makes her way out of the room, calling back casually as she goes.

"If the therapist is a creep, I'm blasting a hole through their head!"

She hears Nat laugh from down the hall, though she's not kidding. She will blast a hole through their head. She's been doing target practise, after all.


	29. 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All comments and kudos are appreciated! Enjoy guys!

**April 19th, 2016**

She concludes that therapy may not have been the best idea, but she only comes to that conclusion when she's actually sat in the room. She agreed to it hastily, what Wanda said having struck a chord with her. She thought that rushing her decision would be the best thing to do. She thought that she wouldn't be anxious at the idea but now, as she sits on the falsely comfortable chair opposite the woman who's supposed to be her therapist, she realizes that she was wrong.

"How are you feeling right now, Harper?" The therapist, Jacquie, asks her. She honestly doesn't seem that bad all things considered, but Harper's apprehension doesn't diminish because of it.

Harper scoffs, asking, "You want an honest answer?"

"Yes, of course." Jacquie replies, and Harper has to resist the urge to roll her eyes at her 'therapist voice'. She understands she may mean well, but it gets increasingly frustrating the more she hears it, "I'm here so you can talk honestly about everything and anything. I'm not here to judge you."

"Honestly, I'm kinda hungry." Harper quips, standing up from her seat and walking over to the window. She catches a glimpse of Rhodey flying around outside, presumably testing out some upgrades to his suit. She wishes she could be out there right now, "Yeah, I could really go for a cheeseburger right about now. A bacon cheeseburger would be even better. Have you ever had a bacon cheeseburger, doc?"

"I'm vegetarian."

Harper turns back to her, leaning against the wall by the window, "That sucks. You're missing out, doc."

She's surprised that the therapist isn't fed up with her yet. She had figured that she would be by now. She's not trying to be an asshole; she's not exactly the most cooperative patient.

"I understand you've been an Avenger for about a year." Jacquie says, actually sounding interested and genuine, which surprises Harper, "That must be pretty cool."

Harper shrugs, "Depends on how you look at it. Not everyone wants to be a superhero."

"My boys would love to be. They're big fans." Jacquie remarks.

Harper pauses. She knows what she wants her to talk about. She knows that the therapist must know some background information about what's happened, and she knows what she's trying to get out without directly saying it. She's used to people dancing around their words.

She looks at her pointedly, "I know what you want me to talk about, doc. I'm not dumb."

"I know you're not. Far from it, actually." Jacquie quips back, surprising Harper, and Harper can tell that she notices the surprise in her expression, "And I'm not here to make you talk about anything. I'm here to listen to what you want to talk about."

"But you want me to talk about what happened with HYDRA, don't you?" Harper remarks bluntly.

"Do you want to talk about what happened with HYDRA?"

"Do you want me to talk about it?"

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I'm starting to see a pattern here." Harper scoffs, and Jacquie remains neutral. Sighing, Harper relents, "It was pretty shit, if I'm being honest."

She pauses, waiting for the cliche therapist response, but it never comes, catching her off guard.

"This is the part where you say 'I can imagine' or some other crap like that." She says expectantly, but Jacquie doesn't seem remotely phased by her snark.

"I'm not gonna break your trust by lying to you."

Harper quirks an eyebrow, "What makes you think that I trust you?"

"You haven't left the room yet." Jacquie counters.

Touche.

She had expected the therapist to be a total pushover. She figured she would just drone on and on about talking about her emotions and that she'd treat her like glass, but she's done neither. She's actually stood her ground.

It still doesn't mean Harper's on board with any of this.

She doesn't say anything for a couple of minutes. The room is silent, save for the ticking of the clock on the wall, but the therapist doesn't push. Harper sits back down when she gets bored of looking out of the window, reclining back into the chair again, and she breathes out shakily before talking again.

"I was gone for like 2 months. I stop counting after a while. Everything got so repetitive so I couldn't exactly tell the difference between each day."

She keeps her eyes focused on her hands as she talks, and she doesn't understand how she can go from joking about cheeseburgers to feeling an impending sense of nervousness. She knows that it's not a panic attack because she's had those before, but it's making her feel uncomfortable like one.

"That must have been difficult."

"Yeah, it was." Harper replies, eyes focused intently on her shaking hands, "It's funny, though."

"What is?"

"I keep getting angry at HYDRA for treating me like a lab rat, but my parents did the exact same thing." She says, trying to ignore the overwhelming sense of sadness that hits her when she thinks about how fucked up it all is, "In retrospect, I've spent my entire life as an experiment. You can't really complain if you don't know any better."

"I think it would be more concerning if you didn't complain." Jacquie remarks, "It's important that you understand that you're more than an experiment, Harper."

Harper rolls her eyes.

"Right, because experiments can't be diagnosed with PTSD."

"That's not entirely what I meant, but you're right. They can't."

"Of course I'm right." Harper scoffs, glancing up from her hands then when she realizes how that last statement sounded, asking simply, "Was that arrogant of me?"

"It was." Jacquie replies, and Harper narrows her eyes at her, making her shrug, "I said I wouldn't lie."

Touche. Again.

"I know that I'm more than an experiment. That's not my problem." Harper says. She knows that's not her problem. That's not why she keeps having nightmares. That's not why she's here.

"No one ever said that you have a problem, Harper."

"Tell that to the doctor who diagnosed me." Harper scoffs, continuing when Jacquie looks as if she's gonna disagree again, "And don't say that it's not a problem, okay? Because it is. That's what you're here for, right? To fix the problem."

That's the point of all of this. To fix her. To make things better. She knows it a lot to ask of anyone, even a therapist, but that's the reason she's doing this.

"I can't fix it, Harper. No one can." Jacquie admits with a sigh and, as if sensing Harper's unrest, adds, "But I can help you cope."

"What makes you think I can't cope?" Harper questions. Jacquie doesn't say anything, but her eyes do drift down to the filing sleeve securely in her hands. Harper sighs, reclining back into her chair for the third time and asking, "You gonna tell me how you can help, or what?"

"I'm glad you asked."

* * *

"Right, so turns out my therapist is a vegetarian."

Sam glances up from the Sports Issue in his hands as she strolls into the lounge, "What's wrong with being vegetarian?"

"Nothing at all. I'd probably go vegetarian if I didn't love cheeseburgers so much." Harper replies with a shrug, slumping down into the seat opposite him, "It just sucks because if I end up not totally hating her, we can't go and get cheeseburgers."

Sam quirks an eyebrow, "You really hate your therapist?"

"No." She admits, sighing, "She's not as bad as I thought she'd be."

The first session honestly wasn't that bad. Obviously it wasn't great, but she couldn't have expected it to be because she knew from the get-go that it wouldn't be. But she has to admit that Jacquie really isn't that bad. She's not a total asshole, at least.

"You feeling any better now that you've talked to someone?" Sam asks her, leaning forward and placing the issue in his hands down on the coffee table before reclining back again.

"I don't know. I know that I'm hungry, though." She remarks. She knows that she's being intentionally avoidant, and she can tell that Sam knows it too. He chooses not to push her though, prompting her to ask, "Can we go and get cheeseburgers?"

He chuckles, rising up from his seat as she practically jumps up, "Yeah, we can get cheeseburgers."

Harper smirks, an idea coming to her head, "Race ya!"

"Hey, you know that you have an unfair advantage!" He protests, but by that point she's already halfway down the hall. He chuckles, shaking his head and jogging after her,

"Kids." He scoffs, grinning.


	30. 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All comments and kudos are greatly appreciated! Enjoy! :)

**May 3rd, 2016**

Harper wakes up early. She woke up again last night, but it was better than most of the others. She didn't wake up screaming, just sweating profusely and panicked. It took a while to calm back down but she got there eventually. She has to admit that therapy has made some things better but it turns out that Jacquie was right - she really can't fix it. She can only try and help her cope.

She walks into the control room with a slight yawn, noticing Steve stood alone watching the monitors, "Morning, Steve." She says, smiling, adding with confusion, "I thought Sam was checking the monitors with you this morning."

Someone always checks the monitors in the morning. Always sees if they got any intel overnight. Harper's done a couple of checks herself, though they've never received anything when she's been on check. She knows that Sam's also supposed to be on check because the two men were talking about it at dinner last night.

"He went for a fly." Steve replies, glancing over at her as she comes to stand by his side.

"And he didn't invite me?"

"He went to collect intel."

"Gotcha." Harper replies, tone turning sombre. If Sam's gone to collect intel, then something must be up. Odds are that they'll end up with a mission. "I still would've liked an invite, though."

Steve chuckles, "Next time, kiddo."

Sam walks into the room then, goggles down and wing-suit on, suggesting that he's only just got in. He's gripping a comms device tightly in his hand, "Hey, Cap. Looks like we got a hit. A major one." He glances over at Harper, "Morning, kid."

"You went flying without me." Harper replies, eyes narrowed, and Sam chuckles and ruffles her hair lightly. She shrugs him off, rolling her eyes.

Steve nods to Sam, "Throw it up on the screen."

Sam nods, swiping the data from his comms device to the big screen in front of them, display a flurry of the data that he collected, "What we've got here is some hard intel on an ex-Hydra operative working his way towards Lagos, Nigeria."

"How fresh is this intel?"

"Hours." Sam tells him. Something shifts in Steve's expression, and Sam seemingly forgets that she's there when he adds in a low toned voice, "I know this one's personal, but should we assemble the team?"

"Personal?" Harper questions, brow furrowed in confusion. She stares at Steve, trying to understand what's going on, when she recognizes the expression he's holding. She's seen it before. Sighing, she realizes, "You think it's Bucky."

It makes sense. He's technically an ex-HYDRA operative, regardless of whether or not that was consensual. She knows that he's still out there - Steve's told her so and she believes him. He doesn't have to say anything for her to know that her suspicion is correct.

"Go and tell Wanda and Natasha to get ready." He says, turning to Sam, "We don't need the whole team, but we're gonna need backup."

Sam nods, rushing out of the room. Harper turns to Steve again once he's gone, "That day I found you looking at Rumlow...you weren't looking for him initially. You were looking for Bucky."

She should've known. She's never met Bucky, and she can't pretend to know him well, but she can tell how much he means to Steve. He's a part of his life - his old life, before he got mixed up in wars and experiments and the team. Even if he's not the same, he's still a part of who he was. Harper knows that she'd want to cling onto that if she were in his position.

"I've been looking ever since D.C. Sam's been helping." Steve explains honestly, "He pulled me from the river when he could've left me for dead. Part of Buck is still there. I know it."

He's clinging onto hope. That's what it is. Most people would've given up by now. Would've known to not track down a single volatile person among seven billion. Steve's different. He's not giving up.

He's also not wrong.

"You're probably right. If he's anything like how I was when..." Harper admits, her voice beginning to trail off when her thoughts catch up to her. Steve looks at her, concerned but understanding, and she resets herself before continuing, "How I was when they took me and did what they did, then part of him will still be there. They don't completely wipe your old conscience. They just write over parts of it to sculpt you into the weapon they want."

That's what HYDRA tried to do to her. That's technically what they did do to her - her triggers still exist and she can't get rid of them. Even when she was under their control, parts of her were still there, so odds are the same applies to Bucky.

Steve places a comforting hand on her shoulder. She smiles gratefully, turning to him with full sincerity and saying, "I know you don't want loads of us coming, but I really want to help you on this one. I want to help you get your best friend back."

That's what this is about. It's not about stopping an ex HYDRA operative despite what the intel suggests. It's about getting Steve's friend back, and Harper wants to help. If anyone's gonna understand the perspective of someone used by HYDRA, it's her.

He nods, saying determinedly, "Suit up."

* * *

The QuinJet rumbles quietly as they head for their destination. Cap and Sam are up front, having briefed the rest of them on the mission, and Nat's sat in the seat just behind Steve, keeping an eye on some of the monitors. Wanda's sat towards the back the jet, casually expelling small red wisps between her hands.

Harper paces around the jet, taping around on her suit control panel absentmindedly. She's not nervous or anything, but she understands that this mission is more important than perhaps all of the others they've done, at least in terms of personal reasons. She knows that now, more than ever, they can't screw this up.

"Just got some updated intel on our target." Sam says. Harper pauses, glancing up from her suit panel, and even Wanda pauses to look over at him from her seat.

"What's it say?" Steve asks, tone both apprehensive and urgent. Sam glances over at him, and Harper knows in that moment that it's not good.

"Turns out it's not Bucky we're after."

Harper sees the way Steve's entire body deflates at Sam's confirmation. She feels painfully bad for him. He's been looking for about two years, and even she was sure that this had to be Bucky after Sam showed her all of the intel before boarding the jet. It all added up.

"I'm sorry, Steve." She says apologetically. He glances back at her from his seat, forcing a smile onto his face.

"It's not your fault, kid." He tells her, and she just nods back, opting not to push him on the matter. She watches him steel his expression, turning back to Sam and asking, "Who is it?"

"Rumlow."

A heartbeat skips and it's not hers. In hindsight she should've seen that coming. If it wasn't Bucky, it clearly would've been Rumlow. No other ex-HYDRA operatives have reared their heads, and Ivan and all of his associates are in maximum security prisons, so it couldn't be any of them.

Steve nods, telling Sam to keep their course, and she hears the heartbeat skip again. It's still not hers.

Nat rises out of her seat them, approaching her with a weary expression on her face, and that's when Harper puts two and two together.

"Before you freak out, I'm fine. Honestly." She reassures her. She's not scared and she's also not incredibly angry. Her hands aren't flickering, her heartbeat's not picking up. She's focused on the mission and that's it.

Nat sighs, hesitating for a moment before saying, "Maybe you should wait in the jet."

"Nat, I told you that I'm-." Harper protests, stilling when she sees Nat's expression, brow furrowing when she realizes, "You don't think I can be objective, do you?"

She doesn't say anything, which tells Harper everything that she needs to know. Nat thinks that she'll lose it. That she'll act hastily and end up doing something reckless.

"Nat, I'm not a killer, and I don't intend on being one." She says truthfully. She may not be Rumlow's biggest fan, but she's not gonna get to that point, regardless of what he's done to her and the people she cares about.

"I know that." Nat responds instantly, looking beyond stunned at the implication, and Harper knows that she's won. When you can catch Natasha Romanoff off guard, you know that you've won the argument.

"Good. So you know that I've got this under control." She replies determinedly and reassuringly, moving past Nat before she can try and protest her decision. She moves to Sam's side, asking, "How far out are we, Sam?"

"Couple of minutes." He replies, "You reckon you can get us to our positions after we've landed the jet?"

"Is the molecular formula for sulfur trioxide SO3?" She quips back. Sam looks confused, and upon glancing around, she realizes that none of the others are understanding her either. Even the red wisps in Wanda's hands stop as she looks over at her, baffled. She sighs, adding, "Yeah, I got it."

"Good." Steve concludes, eyes focused on the faint sight of Lagos as the jet begins to descend, "Let's go get this guy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that wraps up this part of the story. Yeah...you guys didn't think this was over, did you?
> 
> I'm excited to announce that I'll be continuing this story onto Civil War, with the first chapter likely coming out tomorrow! I'm looking forward to it, and I hope you guys are too!
> 
> Thank you so much for all your comments and kudos! They truly inspire me to keep writing and they light up my day, and I love interacting with you guys in the comments.
> 
> Thank you and I hope you enjoyed Illuminated! Sequel coming soon :)!


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